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ENGLISH LESSONS FOR ENGLISH PEOPLE. 



ENGLISH LESSONS 



FOE ENGLISH PEOPLE. 



BY 

THE REV. EDWIN A. ABBOTT, MA., 

• I 

HEAD MASTER OF THE CITY OF LONDON SCHOOL ; 



J. R. SEELEY, M.A., 

PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. 



"It is not so much a merit to know English as it is a shame not to know 
it ; and I look upon this knowledge as essential for an Englishman, and not 
merely for a fine speaker. " — Adapted from Cicero. 



THIKD THOUSAND. 



SEELEY, JACKSON, AND HALLIDAY, 54, FLEET STREET. 
LONDON. MDCCCLXXI. 



1ST I 



^5 






& 
> 



TO THE 

REV. G. F. W. MORTIMER, D.D., 

Prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral, late Head Master of the 
City of London School. 

Dear Doctor Mortimer, 

We have other motives, beside the respect and grati- 
tude which must be felt for you by all those of your old 
pupils who are capable of appreciating the work you did at 
the City of London School, for asking you to let us dedicate 
to you a little book which we have entitled " English 
Lessons for English People." 

Looking back upon our school life, we both feel that 
among the many educational advantages which we enjoyed 
under your care, there was none more important than the 
study of the works of Shakspeare, to which we and our 
schoolfellows were stimulated by the special prizes of the 
Beaufoy Endowment. 

We owe you a debt of gratitude not always owed by 
pupils to their teachers. Many who have passed into a life 



IV DEDICATION. 

of engrossing activity without having been taught at school 
to use rightly, or to appreciate the right use of, their native 
tongue, feeling themselves foreigners amid the language of 
their country, may turn with some point against their 
teachers the reproach of banished Bolingbroke : — 

My tongue's use is to me no more 
Than an unstringed viol or a harp, 
Or like a cunning instrument cased up, 
Or, being open, put into his hands 
That knows no touch to tune the harmony \ 
Within my mouth you have engaoled my tongue, 
Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips, 
And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance 
Is made my gaoler to attend on me. 
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, 
Too far in years to be a pupil now. 

It is our pleasant duty, on the contrary, to thank you 
for encouraging us to study the " cunning instrument" 
of our native tongue. 

Our sense of the benefits which we derived from this 
study, and our recollection that the study was at that time 
optional, and did not affect more than a small number of the 
pupils, lead us to anticipate that when once the English 
language and literature become recognized, not as an 
optional but as a regular part of our educational course, 
the advantages will be so great as to constitute nothing 
short of a national benefit. 



DEDICATION. V 

The present seems to be a critical moment for English 
instruction. The subject has excited much attention of late 
years : many schools have already taken it up ; others are 
on the point of doing so ; it forms an important part of 
most Government and other examinations. But there is a 
complaint from many teachers that they cannot teach English 
for want of text-books and manuals : and, as the study of 
English becomes year by year more general, this complaint 
makes itself more and more distinctly heard. To meet this 
want we have written the following pages. If we had had 
more time, we might perhaps have been tempted to aim at 
producing a more learned and exhaustive book on the 
subject ; but, setting aside want of leisure, we feel that a 
practical text-book, and not a learned or exhaustive treatise, 
is what is wanted at the present crisis. 

We feel sure that you will give a kindly welcome to our 
little book, as an attempt, however imperfect, to hand on the 
torch which you have handed to us ; we beg you also to 
accept it as a token of our sincere gratitude for more than 
ordinary kindnesses, and to believe us 

Your affectionate pupils, 

J. R. SEELEY, 
EDWIN A. ABBOTT. 



PEEFACE. 



This book is not intended to supply the place of an English 
Grammar. It presupposes a knowledge of Grammar and of 
English idiom in its readers, and does not address itself 
to foreigners, but to those who, having already a familiar 
knowledge of English, need help to write it with taste and 
exactness. Some degree of knowledge is presumed in the 
reader ; nevertheless we do not presume that he pos- 
sesses so much as to render him incapable of profiting 
from lessons. Our object is, if possible, not merely to in- 
terest, but to teach ; to write lessons, not essays, — lessons 
that may perhaps prove interesting to some who have passed 
beyond the routine of school life, but still lessons, in the 
strictest sense, adapted for school classes. 

Aiming at practical utility, the book deals only with those 
difficulties which, in the course of teaching, we have found 
to be most common and most serious. For there are many 
difficulties, even when grammatical accuracy has been at- 
tained, in the way of English persons attempting to write 
and speak correctly. First, there is the cramping restriction 



Vlll PREFACE. 

of an insufficient vocabulary ; not merely a loose and inexact 
apprehension of many words that are commonly used, and 
a consequent difficulty in using them accurately, but also a 
total ignorance of many other words, and an inability to use 
them at all ; and these last are, as a rule, the very words 
which are absolutely necessary for the comprehension and ex- 
pression of any thought that deals with something more than 
the most ordinary concrete notions. There is also a very com- 
mon inability to appreciate the differences between words that 
are at all similar. Lastly, where the pupil has studied Latin, 
and trusts too much for his knowledge of English words to 
his knowledge of their Latin roots, there is the possibility of 
misderiving and misunderstanding a word, owing to igno- 
rance of the changes of letters introduced in the process of 
derivation ; and, on the other hand, there is the danger of 
misunderstanding and pedantically misusing words correctly 
derived, from an ignorance of the changes of meaning which 
a word almost always experiences in passing from one lan- 
guage to another. The result of all this non-understanding 
or slovenly half- understanding of words is a habit of slovenly 
reading and slovenly writing, which when once acquired is 
very hard to shake off. 

Then, following on the difficulties attending the use of 
words, there are others attending the choice and arrangement 
of words. There is the danger of falling into " poetic prose, " 
of thinking it necessary to write " steed " or " charger " in- 



PKEFACE. IX 

stead of " horse," " ire " instead of " anger," and the like ; 
and every teacher who has had much experience in looking 
over examination papers, will admit that this is a danger to 
which beginners are very liable. Again, there is the tempta- 
tion to shrink with a senseless fear from using a plain word 
twice in the same page, and often from using a plain word at 
all. This unmanly dread of simplicity, and of what is called 
" tautology," rise gives to a patchwork made up of scraps 
of poetic quotations, unmeaning periphrases, and would-be 
humorous circumlocutions, — a style of all styles perhaps the 
most objectionable and offensive, which may be known and 
avoided by the name of Fine Writing. Lastly, there is 
the danger of obscurity, a fault which cannot be avoided 
without extreme care, owing to the uninflected nature of our 
language. 

All these difficulties and dangers are quite as real, and 
require as much attention, and are fit subjects for practical 
teaching in our schools, quite as much as many points 
which, at present, receive perhaps an excessive attention in 
some of our text-books. To use the right word in the right 
place is an accomplishment not less valuable than the know- 
ledge of the truth (carefully recorded in most English 
Grammars, and often inflicted as a task upon younger pupils) 
that the plural of cherub is cherubim, and the feminine of 
bull is cow. 

To smooth the reader's way through these difficulties is 



X PREFACE. 

the object of the first three Parts of this book. Difficulties 
connected with Vocabulary are considered first. The stu- 
dent is introduced, almost at once, to Synonyms, He is 
taught how to define a word, with and without the aid of its 
synonyms. He is shown how to eliminate from a word 
whatever is not essential to its meaning. The processes of 
Definition and Elimination are carefully explained : a system 
or scheme is laid down which he can exactly follow ; and ex- 
amples are subjoined, worked out to illustrate the method 
which he is to pursue. A system is also given by which 
the reader may enlarge his vocabulary, and furnish himself 
easily and naturally with those general or abstract terms 
which are often misunderstood and misused, and still more 
often not understood and not used at all. Some information 
is also given to help the reader to connect words with their 
roots, and at the same time to caution him against supposing 
that, because he knows the roots of a word, he necessarily 
knows the meaning of the word itself. Exercises are inter- 
spersed throughout this Part which can be worked out with, 
or without, an English Etymological Dictionary, 1 as the 
nature of the case may require. The exercises have not 
been selected at random ; many of them have been subjected 
to the practical test of experience, and have been used in 
class teaching. 

1 An Etymological Dictionary is necessary for pupils studying the First 
Part. Chambers's or Ogilvie's will answer the purpose. 



PREFACE. XI 

The Second Part deals with Diction. It attempts to illus- 
trate with some detail the distinction — often ignored by those 
who are beginning to write English, and sometimes by others 
also — between the Diction of Prose, and that of Poetry. It 
endeavours to dissipate that excessive and vulgar dread of 
tautology which, together with a fondness for misplaced 
pleasantry, gives rise to the vicious style described above. 
It gives some practical rules for writing a long sentence 
clearly and impressively ; and it also examines the differ- 
ence between slang, conversation, and written prose. Both 
for translating from foreign languages into English, and for 
writing original English composition, these rules have been 
used in teaching, and, we venture to think, with encouraging 
results. 

A Chapter on Simile and Metaphor concludes the subject 
of Diction. We have found, in the course of teaching, that 
a great deal of confusion in speaking and writing, and still 
more in reading and attempting to understand the works of 
our classical English authors, arises from the inability to ex- 
press the literal meaning conveyed in a Metaphor. The 
application of the principle of Proportion to the explanation 
of Metaphor has been found to dissipate much of this con- 
fusion. The youngest pupils readily learn how to " expand 
a Metaphor into its Simile ;" and it is really astonishing 
to see how many difficulties that perplex young heads, and 
. sometimes old ones too, vanish at once when the key of 



Xll PREFACE. 

" expansion" is applied. More important still, perhaps, is 
the exactness of thought introduced by this method. The 
pupil knows that, if he cannot expand a metaphor, he does 
not understand it. All teachers will admit that to force a 
pupil to see that he does not understand anything is a great 
stride of progress. It is difficult to exaggerate the value of a 
process which makes it impossible for a pupil to delude 
himself into the belief that he understands when he does not 
understand. 

Metre is the subject of the Third Part. The object of this 
Part (as also, in a great measure, of the Chapter just men- 
tioned belonging to the Second Part) is to enable the pupil 
to read English Poetry with intelligence, interest, and appre- 
ciation. To teach any one how to read a verse so as to mark 
the metre on the one hand, without on the other hand con- 
verting the metrical line into a monotonous doggrel, is not so 
easy a task as might be supposed. Many of the rules stated 
in this Part have been found of practical utility in teaching 
pupils to hit the mean. Kules and illustrations have there- 
fore been given, and the different kinds of metre and varieties 
of the same metre have been explained at considerable length. 

This Chapter may seem to some to enter rather too much 
into detail. We desire, however, to urge as an explanation, 
that in all probability the study of English metre will rapidly 
assume more importance in English schools. At present, 
very little is generally taught, and perhaps known, about 



PEEFACE. Xlii 

this subject. In a recent elaborate edition of the works of 
Pope, the skill of that consummate master of the art of 
epigrammatic versification is impugned because in one of his 
lines he suffers the to receive the metrical accent. When one 
of the commonest customs (for it is in no sense a license) 
of English poets, — a custom sanctioned by Shakspeare, 
Dry den, Milton, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Tennyson, 
— can be censured as a fault, and this in a leading edition of a 
leading poet of our literature, it must be evident that much 
still remains to be done in teaching English Metre. At pre- 
sent this Part may seem too detailed. Probably, some few 
years hence, when a knowledge of English Metre has become 
more widely diffused, it will seem not detailed enough. 

The Fourth Part (like the Chapter on Metaphor) is con- 
cerned not more with English than with other languages. It 
treats of the different Styles of Composition, the appropriate 
subjects for each, and the arrangement of the subject-matter. 
We hope that this may be of some interest to the general 
reader, as well as of practical utility in the higher classes of 
schools. It seems desirable that before pupils begin to write 
essays, imaginary dialogues, speeches, and poems, they should 
receive some instruction as to the difference of arrangement 
in a poem, a speech, a conversation, and an essay. 

An Appendix adds a few hints on some Errors in Beason- 
ing. This addition may interfere with the symmetry of the . 
book ; but if it is found of use, the utility will be ample 



XIV PREFACE. 

compensation. In reading literature, pupils are continually 
meeting instances of false reasoning, which, if passed over 
without comment, do harm, and if commented upon, require 
some little basis of knowledge in the pupil to enable him 
to understand the explanation. Without entering into the 
details of formal Logic, we have found it possible to give 
pupils some few hints which have appeared to help them. 
The hints are so elementary, and so few, that they cannot 
possibly delude the youngest reader into imagining that they 
are anything more than hints. They may induce him here- 
after to study the subject thoroughly in a complete treatise, 
when he has leisure and opportunity; but, in any case, a boy 
will leave school all the better prepared for the work of life, 
whatever that work may be, if he knows the meaning of 
induction, and has been cautioned against the error, post hoc, 
ergo propter hoc. No lesson, so far as our experience in 
teaching goes, interests and stimulates pupils more than 
this ; and our experience of debating societies in the higher 
forms of schools, forces upon us the conviction that such 
lessons are not more interesting than necessary. 

Questions on the different paragraphs have been added at 
the end of the book, for the purpose of enabling the student 
to test his knowledge of the contents, and also to serve as 
home lessons to be prepared by pupils in classes. 1 

1 Some of the passages quoted to illustrate style are intended to be com- 
mitted to memory and used as repetition-lessons. — See pp. 177, 178,309 
233, etc. 



PREFACE. XV 

A desire, expressed by some teachers of experience, that 
these lessons should be published as soon as possible, has 
rather accelerated the publication. Some misprints and other 
inaccuracies may possibly be found in the following pages, 
in consequence of the short time which has been allowed us for 
correcting them. Our thanks are due to several friends who 
have kindly assisted us in this task, and who have also aided 
us with many valuable and practical suggestions. Among 
these we desire to mention Mr. Joseph Payne, whose labours 
on Norman French are well known ; Mr. J. S. Philpotts, late 
Fellow of New College, Oxford, and one of the Assistant 
Masters of Rugby School ; Mr. Edwin Abbott, Head Master 
of the Philological School ; Mr. Howard Candler, Mathematical 
Master of Uppingham School ; and the Rev. R. H. Quick, 
one of the Assistant Masters of Harrow School. 

In conclusion, we repeat that we do not wish our book to 
be regarded as an exhaustive treatise, or as adapted for the 
use of foreigners. It is intended primarily for boys, but, in 
the present unsatisfactory state of English education, we 
entertain a hope that it may possibly be found not unfit for 
some who have passed the age of boyhood ; and in this hope 
we have ventured to give it the title of English Lessons for 
English People. 



SHORT TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PART I.— Vocabulary. page 

Chapter I. Words defined by Usage . . 1 

Chapter IT. Words defined by Derivation . . .21 

PART II.— Diction. 

Chapter I. Diction of Poetry . . . . .54 

Chapter II. Diction of Prose . . . . .86 

Chapter III. Faults in Diction . . . . .102 

Chapter IV. Metaphorical Diction .... 126 

PART III.— Metre. 

Chapter I. Metre in General ..... 143 
Chapter II. Disyllabic Metre . . . . .190 

Chapter III. Trisyllabic Metre . . . . .210 

PART IV. 

Hints on Selection and Arrangement .... 216 

APPENDIX. 

Hints on some Errors in Reasoning .... 255 

Table of Consonants .... . *JS4 

Questions and References to Exercises .... 285 



CONTENTS. 



FIEST PART. 
CHAPTER I. 

WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 

PARAGRAPH 

The process of Definition explained __-_-_ 1 — 6 

Synonyms ----------- 7, 8 

Anonyms -----------9, 10 

General, or abstract, Terms -------- 11 

Classification of Words -------- 12 

CHAPTER II. 

WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 

The use of Derivation --------- 13 

The danger of Pedantry -------- 14 

Hybrids ----------- 15 

Latin Prefixes ---------- 16 

Greek Prefixes ---------- 17 

Teutonic Prefixes --------- 18 

Noun Affixes ---------- 19 

Adjective Affixes --------- 20 

Verbal Affixes ---------- 21 

Derivation, insufficient by itself -------22 

Latin Roots „-_____--_ 23 

Greek Roots ---------- 24 

Grimm's Law ---------- 25 

b 



XV111 CONTENTS. 

PARAGRAPH 

Classification of Consonants ------- 26 

Grimm's Law exemplified -------- 27 

Other Changes of Consonants ------- 28 

Contraction and Extension of Words - - - - - - 29, 30 

Liquid Changes and Assimilation of Vowels - - - - 31, 32 

Changes of Meaning in Derivation ------ 33 

The Law of Change --------- 34 

The Law of Contraction -------- 35 

The Law of Metaphor- -------- 36 

The Law of Extension --------- 37 

The Law of Deterioration -------- 38 

The Law of Amelioration -------- 39 



SECOND PART. 
CHAPTER I. 

POETIC DICTION. 



Poetic Diction ---------- 40 

,, „ is Archaic -------- 41 

„ „ is Picturesque ------- 42 

„ „ uses Epithets for Things - 4'2a 

M „ uses Ornamental Epithets ----- 4-2 h 

m9 „ uses Essential Epithets ------ 42c 

, „ is averse to lengthiness - - -43a, 436 

„ is euphonious _______ 43^ 

,, Characteristics of, exaggerated - 44 

9 „ different styles of------- 45 

The Elevated Style (Paradise Lost) ------ 46 

Grotesqueness, Bombast - - - - - - - - 47, 48 

Tameness, Bathos --------- 4;) 

Misapplication of Elevated Style (Pope's Odyssey) - 50 

The Graceful Style (Tennyson) ------- 51 

Pedantry, Conventionalism -------- 59 

Deficiency of Grace --------- 53 

The Forcible Style (Shakspeare) ------- r>4 

Coarseness ----------- 55 

The want of Force --------- 56 



CONTENTS. XIX 

PARAGRAPH 

The Simple Style --------- 57 

Childishness ----- ----- - 58 



CHAPTER II. 

THE DICTION OF PROSE. 

The Diction of Prose 59 

Impassioned Prose -------- 60 

Exceptional Poetic Prose -------- 61 

Speech the Guide to Prose -------- 62 

Difference between Speech and Prose ------ 63 

Writing more exact than Speech ------ 64 

Writing less brief than Speech ------- 65 

Writing less varied in Construction than Speech - - - - 66 



CHAPTER III. 

FAULTS IN DICTION AND THEIR REMEDIES. 

Slang - - - 67 

Technical Slang ---68 

Fine Writing ---------- 69 

Patch-work 70 

The Antidote for Tautology 71 

Obscurity, from mis-arrangement -------72 

Obscurity, from ambiguous words -------73 

The Antidote for Obscurity -•- - - -- - - 74 

The Rhetorical Period ---------75 

CHAPTER IY. 

SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 

A Simile 76,77 

Compression of Simile into Metaphor - - - - - 78, 79 

Implied Metaphor, the basis of Language ----- 80 

Metaphor expounded ---------81 

Personification, cannot be expounded ----- 82—84 

Personification analysed -- - - - - - -85 



XX CONTENTS. 

PARAGRAPH 

Personal Metaphor, natural and convenient ----- 86 

Pseudo-Metaphors and Hyperbole -------87 

Confusions of Similarity -------- 88 

Good and bad Metaphors -------- 89 

,. ,, Personifications ------- 90 



THIRD PART. 
CHAPTER I. 

METRE. 



Rhythm, when appropriate ------- -91 

Metre, when appropriate --------gg 

Prose and Poetry in Shakspeare -------93 

Didactic Poetry ----------94 

Language, Metrical and Unmetrical ------ 95 

Metre, different kinds of --------96 

Names of Feet ---------- 97 

Accent ------------98 

Emphasis ----------- 90 

Accent favours Disyllabic Metre ------- 100 

Accent in Trisyllables and Monosyllables - - - - - 101 

Pope's Use of the Unemphatic Accent ------ 103 

Dubious Monosyllabic Accent - - - - - - -109 

The Third Accent often Unemphatic in Pope - - - - 104 

The Purpose of Unemphatic Accents __---- 105 

Emphatic Accents - - - - - -- - - -106 

The Number of Unaccented Syllables in each Foot - - - - 107 

The Prevalent Foot --------- 108 

Rhyme ------------109 

Faults in Rhyming --------- no 

Double Rhyme ---------- HJ 

Quantity ----------- no 

Effect of Quantity, exaggerated - - - - - -113 

Slurred Syllables ----------114 

Pause in Blank Verse --------- 115 

Pause in Pope - - - - - - - - - -116 

Pause in Dryden ---------- 117 



CONTENTS. XXI 

PARAGRAPH 

Compensation of Pauses --------- 118 

Introductory Pause - - - - - - - - -119 

The Pause in Descriptive Poetry ------- 120 

The Pause at the end of the Line ------- 121 

Alliteration ----- 122 

Concealed Alliteration --------- 123 

Early English Alliterative Poetry ------- 124 

Influence of Early English Poetry - - - - - -125 

Alliteration in Elizabethan Authors ------ 126 

Milton's Alliteration - - - - 127 

Vowel Alliteration ---------- 128 

Influence of Early English Poetry on the Initial Foot - 129 

CHAPTER II. 

DISYLLABIC METRE. 

Lines with One Accent --------- 130 

„ „ Two Accents --------- 131 

„ , , Three Accents and Six Accents (Alexandrine) - - - 132 

Iambic with four Accents -------- 133 

Trochaic with Four Accents - - - - - - - -134 

Iambic with Five Accents -------- 135 

Trisyllabic Variation in 136 

Elision in 137 

Trochaic Variation in - 138 

with Ehyme ------ 139 

in Rhyming Narrative - 140 

Trochaic with Five Accents -------- 141 

Spenserian Stanza, and Sonnet ------- 142 



CHAPTER III. 

TRISYLLABIC METRE. 

Trisyllabic Metre, Early Use of -------143 

„ „ Effect of - - - - - - - - 144 

„ „ Scansion of __"'._•_-.- 145 

Anapaest with Two Accents ---I---- 146 

,, „ Three Accents -------- 147 

• ,, „ Four Accents --------- 148 



XX11 CONTENTS. 

PARAGRAPH 

Disyllabic and Trisyllabic Metre, Confusion between - 149 

Classical Metres ---..----- 150 



FOURTH PART. 

HINTS ON SELECTION AND ARRANGEMENT. 

Difference between Scientific and Non-Scientific Composition - - 151 

Non-scientific Composition, subdivision of - - - - - 152 

Selection in Conversation - - - - - - - -153 

Selection in Oratory - - - - - - - - -154 

Selection in Didactic Composition - - - - - - -155 

Selection in Imaginative Literature - - - - - - -156 

Limit of Fiction ---------- 157 

Imaginative Literature dealing with History - - - - - 158 

Unity of Feeling ---------- 159 

Selection in Dramatic Poetry - - - - - - -ICO 

Arrangement in Argument - - ~ - - - - -161 

Argument in Oratory - - - - - - - - -162 

Argument in Didactic Composition - - - - - - -163 

Arrangement in Oratorical Narration - - - - - -164 

Arrangement in Didactic Narration - - - - - - -165 

Arrangement in Imaginative Narration - - - - - -166 

Construction of a Plot - - - - - - - - -167 

Different kinds of Interest - - - - - - - -168 

Incidents interesting in themselves - - - - - - -169 

Incidents that illustrate Character - - - - - - -170 

Idyllic Incidents - - - - - - - - - -171 

Epic Incidents - - - - - - - - - -172 



APPENDIX. 

HINTS ON SOME ERRORS IN REASONING. 

Use of Logic in Literature - - - - - - - -173 

Sources of Knowledge : 

I. Personal Observation - - - - - -174 

II. Induction ____---- 175 

III. Deduction -------- 176 



CONTENTS. XX111 

PARAGRAPH 

Sources of Error : 

I. Prejudice --__-___ J77 
II. Mai- Observation ------- 173 

III. False Induction - - 179 

IV. Confusion - - 180 
V. False Ratiocination - - - - - - -181 

Personal Observation and Prejudice --__-_ 182 

Induction by Enumeration - - - - - - - -183 

Induction always incomplete - - - - - - -184 

Induction with Experiment - - - - - - -185 

Induction without Experiment - - - - - - -186 

Partial Induction -----____ 137 

Analogy meaning Likeness - - - - - - - -188 

,, „ Similarity of Relations ------ 189 

The Argument from Analogy - - - - - - - -190 

Deduction, Technical Terms of - - - - - - -191 

A Syllogism implies Inclusion - - - - - - -192 

Illustration of the Inclusion of the Syllogism ----- 193 

Ambiguous Case ------____ 194 

Propositions of Identity -----____ 295 

Ambiguity of Predicate - - - - - - _ -196 

Conversion of Propositions - - - - - - _ -197 

Denial of the Antecedent -----___ igg 

The Error of the Suppressed Premise ---___ 199 

The Error of the Variable Middle ______ £00 

The Error of the Forgotten Condition --____ 201 

Ignoratio Elenchi - ---_____ 202 

Begging the Question ; Reasoning in a Circle - 203 

Definitions ---------- 204 

Definition and Description -------- 205 

Essentials and Accidents -' - - - - _ _ 206 

Mathematical Certainty -------- 207 

Probable Propositions ------__._ £08 

PAGE 

Table of Consonants -----_■--_ 283 

Questions and References to Exercise ------ 284 



The following is a scheme showing the manner in which 
the book is intended to be used as a text-book in the 
different classes of a school. Class A represents a class 
that has passed through a course of English Grammar, 
begins the study of Latin, and understands Proportion. 



Class. Paragraphs 

a 



B 

c 






13—39; 76—83; 95—99;* 138; 173— 
181. 



'9— 39; 72—90; 95— 99;* 138; 173— 
181. 

' 9—58 ; 67—101 ; * 133—138 ; 1 73— 
181. 



_ (begins Geometry f ^^ i ^~ 101 5 * H2-122 ; 133-138 ; 
D and Latin Prosody) | 15 q . 173_187. 



E 



F (begins Greek) 



( Omits 102— 104; 108; 124—128; 130— 
\ 132; 141—149; and 151—172. 

( Omits 124—128; 130, 131; 143—149; 
( and 151—172. 



G Omits 151—172. 

H Omits none. 

Some of the longer examples in the Chapter on the Diction 
of Poetry, and on pages 174, 177, 178, 188, 208, 209, etc., 
should be committed to memory. 

* The attention of the Pupils should also be directed from the first to 
the substance of Paragraphs 10G, 109, 122, the first half of 129, 188, and 
173—181. 



ENGLISH LESSONS. 

FIEST PAET. 



CHAPTER I. 

WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 

1, The Method of Induction, — The natural way to 
discover the meaning of a word in our native language is 
the method of induction. 1 We hear a word, e.g., oppression, 
repeated, in a certain context, in such a way as to give us, 
as we think, some approximate notion of its meaning, say, 
violence : then we hear it again in different context, and per- 
ceive that it cannot mean exactly violence; it seems to mean 
injustice : but again some further mention of the word makes 
it evident that, though oppression is always unjust, yet it is 
not identical with injustice. If we live in society where the 
word is often and correctly used, or if we read the works of 
accurate authors, we shall in course of time reject incorrect 
notions of the word, and arrive at its exact meaning. This 
process of rejection may be technically called elimination. 
The process by which, by introducing the different instances 
in which a word occurs, we arrive at the meaning which 
the word has in every instance, is called " The Method of 

Induction.'" 

1 See paragraph 175. 

i 



WOKDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 



2. Elimination and Definition.— Suppose the square 
A l Bj C x Di to represent our first notion of a word. When 
we reject or eliminate some part of this notion as being in- 
accurate, we contract our square ; we draw the boundaries 
more closely ; in other words, we define. 

This process of elimination is unconsciously used in the 
discovery of the meaning of the simplest word in our native 
language. The following example should be studied and 
reproduced with the diagram. 



Aj 



Qualities belonging to sugar, but not to salt. 

SWEETNESS. 



Qualities belonging to sugar and salt, but 
not to snow. 



EDIBILITY. 



Qualities belonging to sugar, salt, and 
snow, but not to paper. 

SOLUBILITY. 



D, 



B2 



Qualities common 
to sugar, salt, snow, 
and paper. These 
include 

WHITENESS. 



WOKDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 3 

How does a child discover what is meant by white ? 

He perhaps hears that sugar is white, and he hence infers 
that white has something to do with sugar. Let the square 
Ai B x Ci T>i represent this quality of sugar. What particular 
quality of sugar does white represent ? Perhaps ' sweet.' But 
presently he hears that " salt is white" Then .white can have 
nothing to do with ' sweetness,' since salt is not ' sweet.' Hence 
the child eliminates 'sweetness,' which is peculiar to sugar, and 
narrows the square to A 2 B 2 C 2 D 2 . " Whiteness is something 
common to sugar and salt." What is this common quality ? 
Both sugar and salt are good to eat. Perhaps then white 
means ' good to eat.' But he finds snow called white, and 
snow is not ' good to eat.' Hence he eliminates the quality of 
' edibility,' and narrows the square a second time to A 3 B 3 C 3 
D 3 , which represents qualities common to sugar, salt, and snow. 
Sugar, salt, and snow all melt in water. Perhaps then white 
means 'able to melt.' But, lastly, paper is called white, and 
paper cannot melt. The last elimination of ' solubility ' is 
therefore made, and the square is narrowed to A 4 B 4 C 4 D 4 , 
which represents qualities common to sugar, salt, snow, and 
paper. These qualities (those at least that are obvious to a 
child) are so few that in all probability the child would now 
hit upon the most obvious of them, whiteness. 

This process of induction and elimination, though it draws 
the boundaries closer round the thing to be defined, does 
not completely define it in the case above mentioned and in 
many other cases. A 4 B 4 C 4 D 4 includes whiteness, but it also 
includes visibility, tangibility, and other qualities common to 
sugar, salt, snow, and paper. It would have been a final 
definition if we had said, "whiteness is the colour of snow,'' 
for that definition would not have included anything beside 
whiteness. 



4 WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 

A definition is a description separating the thing 
defined from all other things. 

3. How can we attain to a final definition ?— When 
the thing to be denned belongs to a certain class, we can 
mention the class, and then the qualities which distinguish 
it from other things in the same class. This will be a final 
definition, and may be illustrated by a diagram. Whiteness 




belongs to the class of colours. Draw CB to represent 
the class colour. Whiteness is somewhere or other in C R. 
Now draw another line S W T representing salt and inter- 
secting C R in W. The point W is definitely fixed by the 
intersection of the two lines, and it represents the colour of 
salt or whiteness. 

Caution : A definition, if it be not based upon usage, may be 
very useless even though it be correct. Thus, " man is a 
cooking animal" (even supposing this to be a correct and 
final definition), is by no means so useful a definition as 
one based upon the intellect or moral sense, or upon some 
other faculty supposed to be peculiar to man. Such 
definitions are liable to be not only useless, but incorrect. 
Hence all the definitions of children, not being based upon 
sufficient knowledge, and not being subjected sufficiently to 



WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 5 

the eliminating test, are imperfect. Thus a child might 
define a cat as " a striped quadruped," which would include 
the zebra. In much the same way Plato is said to have 
defined man as " a featherless biped," a definition which 
was at once ridiculed by Diogenes, who exhibited a plucked 
cock to the philosopher's disciples. 

4. Necessity of Elimination before Definition — 

Since a definition is final, and elimination a long and often 
imperfect process, it may be asked, " Why eliminate ? " The 
answer is, in order to define. Definition is simple when we 
know the class and the defining peculiarities of the thing to 
be defined. But how if we do not know them ? Take as 
an example the definition of the word oppression. Suppose 
we say " since oppression involves some kind of pain to the 
sufferer, pain shall; be selected as the class ; and, since it is 
always the strong who oppress the weak, that shall be 
selected as the distinguishing peculiarity. " We therefore 
define oppression as " pain inflicted by the strong on the 
weak.'' 1 It will soon be evident that this definition will not 
bear the test of usage. " The father oppressed his son for 
telling a falsehood" would be an absurd expression, and 
would show that our definition is faulty. If we had used 
the test of this and a few other sentences before defining, 
we should have escaped this error. We should have seen 
that punished not oppressed was the correct word in the above 
sentence, and we should have eliminated "punishment." 

5. Sentences of Elimination. — Having first made 
some rough kind of approximation to the meaning of the 
word to be defined, we can construct sentences containing 



6 WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 

the word, and from these sentences our knowledge of 
English idiom will at once enable us to determine whether 
the approximate meaning requires to be further limited, and 
in what direction. These sentences may be called sentences 
of elimination, because they help us to eliminate from the 
first rough approximate definition whatever is not essential 
to the word. 

6. Approximation.— Care should be taken that the 
approximate definition should be too broad rather than too 
narrow. For instance, if we are going to define oppression, 
we must not take violence as an approximation, for all oppres- 
sion is not violence ; some conduct is oppressive, and yet not 
violent ; violence is therefore too narrow. But all oppression 
is injustice, and injustice will therefore serve as a first ap- 
proximation. Any word that can stand as a predicate in a 
sentence where the word to be defined, preceded by " all," 
e.g., "all oppression,' 7 is the subject, will serve as a first ap- 
proximation. 

Now let us take a few sentences describing unjust conduct, 
and let us use the word oppress. (1.) " The tenant oppressed 
his landlord by defrauding him of his rent." We feel that 
this is incorrect, for oppression is exerted by a superior on 
an inferior, or by the strong on the weak. (2.) " The high- 
wayman oppressed the traveller by taking his purse." This 
is incorrect, because oppression denotes conduct more public 
and self-reliant than the violence of a robber, who may at 
any time be caught and hung. (8.) " The tyrant oppn 
one of his body-guard by giving him a blow." This is not 
correct, for oppression implies systematic injustice, not a 
single isolated action. Hence we eliminate from the broad 
approximation of injustice all injustice that is not (1) practised 



WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 7 

by the strong against the weak ; (2) public and self-reliant ; 
(3) systematic. The residuum, i.e., " injustice more or less 
open and systematic, practised by the strong against the 
weak," is a fair definition of oppression. Here, as very 
often, more than two new notions are necessary for the 
purpose of defining. 

7. Synonyms. — One word can seldom be explained 
(otherwise than very roughly) by any other single word in 
the same language. Even if at first two words are identical 
in meaning, as, perhaps, pig and pork originally were, there 
is a constant tendency (34) to differentiate their meanings. 

It is true that the English language, more than any 
other, is open to the charge of such superfluity. There 
is perhaps little difference between begin and commence, 
answer and reply, end and finish. The former in each 
pair of words is Teutonic, the latter of Latin origin, and 
the one is very nearly an exact translation of the other. 
But even here, though the meaning is nearly the same, 
the use of the words is not the same. Commence requires 
the verbal noun after it, whereas begin can take the infini- 
tive instead. " They began to dance," but " they commenced 
dancing." Moreover begin is far more colloquial than com- 
mence. End is used with impersonal subjects, " the day has 
ended," not " finished," but " I have finished." Again, finish 
refers more to the result produced. "I have now ended 
(not so well finished) forty years of toil," but "I hav e finished 
(not ended) the book." Lastly, answer is more colloquial, and 
may sometimes imply more of retort than reply. 

So few then are the exceptions, that we may lay it down 
as a rule that no English word can be perfectly explained by 
any other single word. If synonyms be used to mean words 



8 WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 

of similar meaning, then they have an existence ; but if they 
mean words of precisely the same meaning, then synonyms 
rarely or never occur. 

Def. Synonyms are words that have not the same, 
but similar, meanings. 

8. The use of Synonyms in defining, — In eliciting 
the exact meaning of a word we are naturally brought into 
contact with synonyms. It is by eliminating synonyms that 
we draw nearer to the meaning of the word to be defined. 
Thus we draw nearer to the meaning of oppression by saying 
it is not the same as violence, or cruelty, or Injustice. Each 
of these eliminations teaches us something, whereas we 
should learn nothing from saying "oppression is not the 
same as fame." One way then of preparing ourselves for 
the task of defining a word is to jot down a group of 
synonymous words. Thus, if we have to define pride, set 
down vanity, conceit, arrogance, assurance, presumption, 
haughtiness, and insolence. Then ascertain (1) what is the 
common quality pervading all these synonyms ; (2) what are 
the special qualities in which pride differs from each of 
its synonyms. Thus (1) the common quality is "an 
exaggerated sense of one's own worth as compared with 
the worth of others." But (2) the proud man is more in- 
different to the opinion of others than the vain man ; he has 
a more solid foundation of merit than the conceited man ; the 
proud man will wait to be honoured, and will seldom pre- 
sume upon his own merits, or upon the yielding nature of 
others ; he is not so selfishly exacting as the arrogant man, 
not so open in betraying his defect as the haughty man, not 
so brutally unfeeling as the insolent man : he is far too 
dignified to be accused of assurance. 



WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 9 

By this process we clear up the meaning not only of the 
word to be defined, but also of all the words in the synony- 
mous group, and this with a brevity and an exactness which 
would be impossible if we took each word separately. The 
following words are intended to be explained and defined in 
this way by reference to their synonyms. Sentences are 
to be constructed containing the word to be defined. Some 
of these sentences will be correct, and may be called defining 
sentences ; others will be incorrect (requiring some synonym, 
and not the word to be defined), and may be called elimina- 
ting sentences. 



GROUP OF SYNONYMS. 


WORD TO BE DEFINED. 


(1) Presumptuous, (2) Insolent, (3) Haughty, 
(4) Vain. 


Proud. 



Defining Sentences. 



(1) He has reason to be proud of 

his discoveries, his son, etc. 

(2) He was too proud to beg. 



Eliminating Sentences.— (1) He was [ 1 ] enough to 
ask for the chief command. (Eliminates the dis- 
position to obtrude ones claims.) 

(2) The brutal | 2 ] of the drunken and exacting 

soldiery alienated the natives. (Eliminates brutal 
contempt for the rights of others.) 

(3) The general, when requested to lay down his arms, 

[ 3 ly] replied, " Come and take them." (Elimi- 
nates contemptuous bearing.) 

(4) The poet's [ 4 ] induced him to take every oppor- 

tunity of reciting his works. (Eliminates desire for 
the admiration of others.) 



10 WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 

Summary. — (1) Pride is a high opinion of the merits of 
one's self, or something connected with one's self. (2) It is 
not pushing like presumption, not brutal like insolence, not 
openly contemptuous like haughtiness, not influenced by the 
desire of admiration like vanity. 



GROUP OF SYNONYMS. 


WORD TO BE DEFINED. 


(1) Power, (2) Strength, (3) Force. 


Authority. 



Defining Sentences. 



(1) Authority is respected by all 
who respect the laws. 

(3) I am supported by the best au- 
thorities in this statement. 



Eliminating Sentences. — (1) It is out of my [ 1 ] to 
oblige you. (Eliminates power in the sense of mere 
ability.) 

(2) I give you full [ 1 ] to release him. (Here authority 

could be used, and the elimination fails, showing 
that power sometimes includes authority.) 

(3) A horse has the [ 2 ] of seven men. (Eliminates 

muscular power.) 

(4) The blow descended with [ 3 ]. (Eliminates dyna- 

mic power.) 

(5) I yielded to [ 3 ], not to argument. (Eliminates 

violence.) 

Summary. — (1) Authority is some kind of power. It 
is power resting upon right, and so, in a secondary sense, it 
is the weight rightfully attaching to a writer recognized as 
judicious. (2) It is not power in the sense of ability, not 
mere muscular power, not dynamic power, not power founded 
on violence. 



WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 11 



GROUP OF SYNONYMS. 


WORD TO BE DEFINED. 


(1) Nation, (2) People, (3) Race, (4) Populace, 
(5; Population, (6) Family. 


Tribe. 



Defining Sentences.-, 



(1) The nation of Israel was com- 

posed of twelve tribes. 

(2) The Bedouin, Red Indian, 

finny tribes, etc. 

(3) I hate the whole tribe of para- 

sites. 



(2) 



Eliminating Sentences. — (1) The three great [ 1 ] of 
the ancient world represent respectively theology, 
philosophy, and law. (Eliminates magnitude and or- 
ganization.) 
'This news was soon brought to the [ 2 ] on the 
shore. (Eliminates people who are merely connected 
by being in the same place at a given moment.) 
The [ 2 J of England ought to be proud of their 
national history. (Eliminates people merely inhabit- 
ing the same territory.) 

(3) The English [ 2 ] is composed of several distinct 

[ 3 ]. (Eliminates people connected by relation- 
ship, but not living together isolated from others.) 

(4) The clamour of the infuriated [ 4 ] drowned the 

voice of the more respectable part of the nation. 
(Eliminates people considered contemptuously.) 

(5) The [ 5 ] of London is about three millions and a 

quarter. (Eliminates people considered numerically.) 

(6) The [ 6 ] is the most natural combination of indi- 
viduals . (Eliminates people having the same father and mother. ) 



12 



WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 



Summary.— (1) A tribe is a number of people (seconda- 
rily, of animals) connected together. (2) The connection of 
a tribe is not on so vast a scale, nor so complicated, as that 
of a nation ; it is not a connection of mere place ; not of 
mere relationship, without connection of place ; a tribe is not 
people considered contemptuously ; not people considered nu- 
merically ; not people living together and having the same 
father or mother. The connection is a common habitation and 
common ancestry, and metaphorically a " family likeness." 

The following words can be defined as above : 

WOKD TO BE 
GKOUP OF SYNONYMS. DEFINED. 

Total, whole, entire Complete. 

Bravery, courage, gallantry Fortitude. 

Aware Conscious. 

Un-natural, non-natural Super-natural. 

Religious, holy Pious. 

Obvious, clear Evident. 

Customary, fashionable Conventional. 

Intelligent, clever, sensible Wise. 

Truthfulness, accuracy, correctness Veracity. 

Imagination Fancy. 

Reason, intellect Understanding. 

Comprehend, understand Apprehend. 

Consciousness, (a) sense (of) Perception. 

Anger, vexation, annoyance, wrath Resentment. 

Bold, stout-hearted, courageous Brave. 

Gentle, tender, kind Mild. 

Shy, meek, retiring, bashful Humble. 

Wisdom, learning, acquaintance Knowledge. 

Aid, help Assist. 

Pardon, pass over Forgive. 



WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 



13 



GROUP OF SYNONYMS. 

Description, explanation 
Notorious, illustrious, renowned, well- 
known, notable 
Agreement, compact 
Useful, advantageous 
Adoration, homage 
Thoughtful, far-sighted 
Statesman 

Superfluous, needless 
Harmless, innocuous 
Examine, inquire into 
Distinguish 

Discover, reveal, uncover 
Just 

Temperance 

Crime, fault, vice, immorality 
Novel, independent 
Influence 
Autocrat, despot 
Repentance 
Hasty, premature 
Occurrence, event 
Affectionate 

Pain, grief, sorrow, agony 
Adversity, calamity, misery 
Plan, project, step 
Object 
Scoff- 
Wit 

Frank, naive 
Lampoon 
Jocose, funny, ludicrous 



WORD TO BE 
DEFINED. 

Definition. 
Famous. 

Convention 

Expedient. 

Worship. 

Prudent. 

Politician. 

Unnecessary. 

Innocent. 

Investigate. 

Discriminate. 

Invent 

Virtuous. 

Self-control. 

Sin. 

Original. 

Ascendency. 

Monarch. 

Remorse. 

Precipitate. 

Circumstance. 

Loving. 

Anguish. 

Tribulation. 

Measure. 

Purpose. 

Sneer. 

Humour. 

Ingenuous. 

Satire. 

Ridiculous. 



14 



WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 



9. Anonyms. — In defining words, and distinguishing 
between different shades of the same meaning, we some- 
times stumble upon a notion that is not expressed by any 
single English word. Such notions have no names, and may 
therefore be called anonyms. 

10. How to find Anonyms. — Differences of meaning 
often spring from differences of degree in the same quality. 
A good many qualities, such as bravery, humility, may be 
treated as being means between extremes of excess or defect. 
Too much bravery may be called rashness, the ' extreme of 
excess ; ' too little may be called cowardice, the ' extreme of 
defect.' And so of humility. 



EXCESS. 


MEAN. 


DEFECT. 


Rashness. 
Servility. 


Bravery. 
Humility. 


Cowardice. 

Pride, or 

Haughtiness. 



It will be good practice to arrange a number of words in 
this way. But we shall soon find that among these words 
there are some which cannot be arranged in complete triplets. 
One or more of the three terms cannot be inserted, not 
having any name. Thus, virtuous anger against ill- doing, 
which we call resentment, may on the side of excess become 
relentlessness, but we have no name to express the defect. 



EXCESS. 


MEAN. 


DEFECT. 


Relentlessness. 


Presentment. 


Anonym. 



WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 



15 



Sometimes we may have one of the extremes given us in 
order to determine the corresponding extreme and the mean. 
Thus, if we have given us fickleness, reserve, and ambition: 



EXCESS. MEAN. 


DEFECT. 


Fickleness. 
Loquacity. 
Ambition. 


Versatility . 

Frankness. 

Anonym, 1 

(proper ambition). 


Obstinacy. 
Reserve. 
Anonym, 
(unambitious). 



"Where we can find no names for the extreme or mean, we 
can sometimes fill up the vacancy with some foreign word. 
But even where we cannot do this, it is useful as well as 
interesting to note what qualities (very often faults or 
virtues) have not been recognized by the national language 
as sufficiently common or important to deserve names. 

It may be also noticed that language is deficient in those 
terms which express the mean or average. The extremes 
strike us, and therefore gain priority in naming. Thus we 
have no one ward to denote the mean between swift and 
slow, big and little, clever and dull, deep and shallow. Hence 
the word denoting excess is generally used to denote the 
average. Thus the word magnitude is used for size, and even 
qualified by " smallest" in — 

This pendent world in bigness 2 as a star 
Of smallest magnitude close by the moon. 

Milton, P. Z.,n. 1053. 

1 Sometimes, emulation. 

2 Words ending in -ness are rarely used in this sense to denote an 
average. We say speed, not swiftness ; magnitude, not greatness or big- 
ness ; ability, not cleverness ; depth, not deepness. 



16 WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 

Exercises. 

(1) Give the extremes of : patient, just, industrious, digni- 
fied, lively, ornate, peaceable, sober, simplicity, faithful, gentle, 
natural (applied to style), forcible (applied to style), cheerful, 
conscientious, tasteful, judicious, self-respect, straightforward, 
meek. 

(2) Give the other extreme, and the mean of : sly, meddle- 
some, impetuous, covetous, pedantic, mean, inquisitive, parsi- 
monious, coarse, cruel, selfish, credulous, reserved, avarice, 
suspicious, passionate, childish, impudent, quarrelsome, hypo- 
crisy. 

11. Generalizing. — To increase one's vocabulary does 
not always imply increasing the number of one's notions. 
The technical words of a railway engineer — for example, such 
as sleeper, shunt, etc. — may express objects or actions that we 
have often previously noticed. Similarly, to be able to dis- 
tinguish between a flock of sheep or birds, a herd of oxen or 
swine, a covey of partridges, and a swarm of flies, need not 
be intellectually improving. But to learn the meanings and 
uses of more general words, especially those that represent 
the operations of the mind, is often accompanied by another 
kind of learning : we gain new notions at the same time 
with the new words. Thus we are all in the habit of using 
the words sight, hearing, taste, etc., denoting the several 
faculties of sense particularly, but not many use the 
general word sensation, and for want of this word many 
do not grasp the notion. The same may be said of such 
words as substance, incorporeal, art, science, culture, litera- 
ture, politics, government. Of these words many persons 
neve i' succeed in grasping the meaning. 

Instead of these general or abstract terms, they take some 

f 4 



WOEDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 17 

particular or concrete term that is included in the general 
term, and they substitute this imperfect meaning for the 
reality. Thus, many, whenever they use the word science, 
think of some one of those sciences which are called 
"natural," associating the word with "chemistry" or 
" botany," and they are consequently quite unprepared for 
such an expression as " the science of philology or psycho- 
log} 7 ." It will therefore be a valuable exercise to perform 
the reverse process to that which we have been describing 
above, and to generalize as well as to define. In generalizing, 
we take away (abstract) that which is peculiar to the in- 
dividual, and leave that which is common to the class (genus), 
or general. Thus motion round our own planet is peculiar 
to the moon. Abstract that, and what remains is motion 
round any planet, which gives us the generic term "satel- 
lite," including Saturn's moons as well as ours. 

Examples.— Moon is included in (1) satellites : satellites 
in (2) planets : planets in (3) heavenly bodies. Weight (1) 
the attraction of the earth; (2) the attraction of every particle 
of matter by every other ; (3) laws of nature. A circle is 
included in (1) conic sections; (2) curves; (3) figures; (4) 
lines. Corn, (1) vegetable; (2) product. Sword, (1) weapon; 
(2) instrument. County-court, (1) judicature ; (2) institution. 
Policeman, (1) executive ; (2) government. A shilling, 
(1) money ; (2) currency. 

Another kind of generalizing consists in giving a name to 
some quality common to two or three objects. Thus " the 
quality of giving light" is common to a lamp and the sun. 
We might try to express it by bright. But a looking-glass is 
bright, and yet does not give light of its own, like the sun. 
We therefore require another word. We might invent " light- 

2 



18 WORDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 

bearing," but the English language generally prefers to ex- 
press such compound words in Latin or Greek, and so we 
say " luminiferous." In the same way, " that which con- 
cerns the mind " is expressed by the Latin mental ; " that 
which pertains to the material objects of nature " is ex- 
pressed by the Greek physical ; the work which anything 
animate or inanimate is fitted to perform is called function, 
and so on. 

Exercises.— Some of these words are so important tha 1 
it will be a valuable exercise to explain them for their own 
sakes ; and as they are not words in common use, reference 
to a dictionary may be allowed. (1) Explain, giving in each 
case a sentence containing the word : 

Propensity, provisional, observation, theory, anticipation, 
realize, generalize, induction, abstraction, analysis, synthesis, 
deduction, categories, essentials, accidents, reaction, organi- 
zation, modification, periodical, maximum, minimum, resi- 
duum, definite, predicate, parallelism, social, tendency, voli- 
tion, empirical, abstract, concrete, eclectic, esoteric, aesthetic, 
individuality, identity, ethics, metaphysics. 

(2) Give names to express " occurring exactly at the same 
time," " living about the same time," " liability to combus- 
tion," " the power of lasting," " able to be understood," 
" the power of not being pierced," "a centre about which 
additional matter may be collected," " the recurring path of 
a planet," " in the act of recovering from illness." 

12. Classification of Words.— The method last men- 
tioned suggests a very useful exercise. Take some general 
notion, such as time, space, action, quantity, boundary, motion, 
thought, speech, mind, body, substance. Each of these will 
have a great number of dependent notions, which can be 



WOKDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 19 

well learned by taking them in groups that show the neces- 
sity of each word, and its connection with the rest of the 
group. Take time, for example. We want words to apply 
to occurrences that happen at the same time (simultaneous), 
to those that happen in the same period (contemporary), 
that which is only for a time (temporary), only for a short 
time (momentary), for all time (eternal), too soon (pre- 
mature), at the right time (seasonable), very long ago 
(ancient), the present as compared with antiquity (modern), 
the time between antiquity and modern times (mediaeval). 

Next take motion. That which causes motion (force), 
motion forward (progress), backward (retrogression), upward 
(elevation), downward (depression), step by step (gradation), 
the rate of motion (velocity), increased motion (acceleration), 
diminished (retardation), the tendency of anything to cause 
motion in another thing towards itself (attraction), the 
sudden communication of motion (impulse), motion asunder 
(disjunction), motion resulting in impact (collision), hasty 
and inconsiderate motion (precipitation), the tendency to 
move downwards (gravitation), motion increasing the space 
occupied (extension), motion diminishing it (compression, 
contraction), motion recovering the original bulk (elasticity), 
the neutralization of each other caused by opposite tendencies 
to motion (equilibrium), the motion resulting from a number 
of tendencies to motion in different directions (resultant), 
liability or non-liability to motion (mobility, immobility), 
harmonious motion (rhythm), motion from different quarters 
to a single point (concentration), property of not moving of 
itself (inertia), the science of motion (dynamics), the science 
relating to the motion of water (hydro -dynamics). 

A few general rules may be given for the collection of a 
group. After the central word, for example, think, has been 



20 WOEDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 

mentioned, we may ask the questions How, when, and where 
does the thing denoted principally manifest itself ? We may 
think rapidly (quick- thoughted), beforehand (fore-thought), 
out of sight of an object before seen (remember, recall). 
Then, what is its object or objects ? We can think of our 
own deeds, thoughts, etc. (consciousness), of one thing at a 
time (concentration). Of course different questions will be 
suitable to different notions. Treating of a science, we 
should above all ask, About what ? What are the different 
subjects which have divided science into different depart- 
ments ? An emotion, e.g., anger, would on the other hand 
suggest, Caused by what motive ? And the next question 
would be, In what degree ? Subjoined are two examples. 



(1) Think. 

Hoiv ? Deeply (meditate, muse, reflect), sadly (brood, mope), 
quickly (quick-thoughted), slowly (dull), rightly (sensible), 
logically (reasonable), with tact (judicious). 

Wlien? . Beforehand (fore-thought, anticipation), too late 
(after-thought, memory), as a preparation for action (plan, pro- 
ject), at the right moment (presence of mind). 

Where? Out of sight of the object thought of (imagine, 
remember), with others (consult). 

Of ivhat ? Of one's own deeds or thoughts (consciousness), 
of one thing at a time (concentration), of trifles (frivolity), of 
nothing but the immediate present (imprudence, improvidence), 
of two or more objects set side by side (compare, contrast, 
ponder, estimate, judge, doubt, perplexity), of one proposition 
as necessarily resulting from others (deduce, induction, infer, 
reason, conclude, logic). 

Faculty of thinking. Thought, reason, intellect, under- 
standing. 



WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 21 

(2) Anger. 

Excited by what? By the sense of personal wrong and the 
desire of revenge (vindictiveness), by the sense of wrong without 
thought of self (resentment), by some slight fault (vexation), 
by inconvenience or disappointment (annoyance). 

When ? Lasting (displeasure), too long (relentless, sulky, 
unforgiving), too soon (choleric, irascible, passionate, irritable). 

To what degree ? Too much (fury, rage, passion), too little 
(impassible, indulgent, fond, tame, spiritless). 



CHAPTER II. 

WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 

13. The method of explaining a word by deduc- 
tion. — When we have ascertained the meaning of a word by 
the method of induction, it is sometimes of use to confirm or 
narrow still further our definition by another method, — the 
method of deduction. 1 Many of our least familiar words are 
derived directly from Latin and Greek words ; others from 
Latin through the French. By taking such compound Eng- 
lish words to pieces, and translating their foreign roots into 
English, we can often deduce the exact meaning of the com- 
pound word. Thus, by knowing that ge is Greek for " earth," 
and that -logy often means " science," we may see that " geo- 
logy " means " science of the earth." But this is not always 
a safe process, as will be shown in the next paragraph. 

1 See paragraph 176. 



22 WOKDS DEFINED BY USAGE. 

14. The danger of Pedantry. — Some technical terms, 
it is true, especially those derived from Greek, such as 
esoteric, eclectic, hyperbole, etc., being confined to the use of 
the learned, have not experienced the fluctuation of popular 
inaccuracy, and retain their original meanings unchanged. 
But even here there is danger. " Astrology," for instance, 
does not now mean the "science of the stars." And of 
other words less technical it may be said as a rule that they 
never mean precisely the same thing in English that they 
meant 1900 years ago in Latin. If, therefore, we relied en- 
tirely, or even mainly, on our knowledge of Latin or Greek, 
we should always be just a little incorrect in the use of 
English derived words. We should use them in what is 
called a peclantical sense. Thus Gibbon writes that "the 
army of the emperor oppressed a superior force of the enemy," 
where he ought to have written crushed, but was misled by 
the Latin meaning of the word oppressit. Still, though this 
process must not supplant the method of induction, it is 
often of use as a corroboration of the results of induction. 

15. Hybrids. — The strict rule for the construction of a 
compound word is that all the parts must be from the same 
language, i.e., all Greek, or all Latin, or all English. Thus, 
since hi is a Latin prefix, and gamy a Greek root, bi-gamy is 
a mongrel word, or (which is the Greek for " mongrel") a 
" hybrid." The word should be strictly, di-gamy. 

But this rule is often violated. It would be an absurd 
restriction if we were not to allow ourselves to use the 
English affixes, -ncss, Ay, and -less after Latin derived words, 
as, rude-ness, equal -hj, care-less. All these are hybrids, but 
they are recognized English. Still we cannot imitate Shak- 
speare in saying " equal-ness " or "crime-less." In the 



WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 23 

same way we can say dis-like, but not with Chapman dis- 
livedj i.e., " deprived of life." On the other hand, the 
English prefix an- can be freely used before Latin-derived 
adjectives. Custom, and custom only, can determine where 
to draw the line. 

It may be stated generally, that though the common 
words and the grammatical inflections of English are mostly 
of English origin, yet the power of forming new words out 
of the purely English element is nearly extinct. We can 
use the adverbial -ly freely, because it is regarded as a 
necessary inflection, but we cannot freely use be- or -en in 
order to make new words like be-lwwl or glad-(d)en. We are 
often obliged to resort to some Latin-derived word, as stultify, 
and indeed sometimes we use a Latin affix after an English 
word, as ic-icle, talk-&-tive. The English prepositions are 
almost useless for the formation of compound words. We 
cannot now use, for instance, the preposition against or gain, 
but have to use the Greek and-, sometimes even before Latin- 
derived words, e.g., anti-religious. 



16. Latin Prefixes. 1 

It will be a useful exercise to write out the exact meanings of the words 
in the right-hand column, tracing the present meaning back to the original 
meaning of the prefix and root. An Etymological Dictionary may be 
used for this purpose. 

A-, ah-, | a- vert, ab-ject. 

Abs before c and t, j J abs-tract, abs-cond. 

1 Words like subter in subter-fuge, sine in sine-cure, juxta in juxta- 
position, that occur once or seldom in the language, are not included in the 
list of Prefixes. 



24 



WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 



Ad-, 


\ 








ad-here. 


Ac- before c 






ac-cess. 


Af- „ 


/ 






af-fect. 


Ag- „ 


9 






ag-gregate. 


Al- „ 


I 






al-lude. 


Am- ,, 


m \ to, at 




am-munition. 


An- „ 


n 


r 




an-nul. 


Ap- „ 


P 






ap-plaud. 


Ar- ,, 


r 






arrogance. 


As- „ 


s 






as-sist. 


At „ 


t) 






at-tend. 


Amb-, on 


both sides, 


around ; 


amb-iguous, am-putate 


Ante-, 1 before ; 




ante-diluvian. 


Bis-, \. 

Bi- J 






bis-cuit, bi-lateral 


ice, two ; 




bi-gamy. 


Circum-, 2 


around ; 




circum-spect. 


Con- 3 




^ 




con-nect. 


Col- before I 






col-lect. 


Com- ,, 


b and^ 




h with, 


com-bine, corn-pact. 


Cor- „ 


r 




together 


cor-rupt. 


Co- before a vowel 


or h, 




co-eval, co-heir, co- 


or independent word ; , 




partner. 


Contra- ) 

\ aerainst : 




contra-vene. 


Contro-i 






contro-vert. 


modified (French) 


into 




Counter- , 


against ; 




counter-feit. 


De-, down, from, off 


> 


de-duce, de-throne. 


Demi, half 








demi-quaver. 



1 In the word anti-cipate, ante assumes the exceptional form anti, which 

must carefully be distinguished from the regular Greek a/ifi-, meaning 
" against." 

2 Circu-, in circu-it, circu-itous. 

8 Court- in counsel, coun-cil, coun-tenance, derived through the French. 



WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 



25 



Dis-, \ 

Di-, L apart, not; 

Dif- before/] 

En-, a Gallicized form of in, 1 which see 

Ex-, 



dis-join, dis-please. 

di-vulge. 

dif-fer. 



E- before d, n, I, m J> ut of, out ; 

1 



W- „ f 

Equi-, equally; 

Extra-, beyond (the bounds); 

In-, modified into ^ 

11- before I 

Im- ,, p, m 

Ir- ,, r 

Gallicized into 
Em-, en 1 - 
In- before h and ^ 

vowels, 

modified into 
II- before I 
Im- ,, m, p 
Ir- „ r 

Inter-,* Gallicized into) 
Enter- /between; 

Intro-, within ; 
Male,^ 



ex-press 

e-duce, e-nervate, e- 
normous, e-lucidate, 
e-manate. 

ef-fect. 

equi- distant. 

extra-vagant. 

in-vade. 

il-luminate. 
m, into, on, against im-press, im-merge. 
(used with verb) ir-radiate. 

em-ploy, en-act, en- 
title. 

in-human. 



Mai-, 
Mann-, hand 



not; (used with il-legal. 

adjective) im-measurable. 

impendent, 
ir-rational. 
inter-vention. 
enter-tain, 
intro-duce. 
male-volent. 
mal-content. 
manu- script. 



1 To be carefully distinguished from the regular Greek prefix en-, as in 
1 en-cyclical." 

2 M in inter and per becomes I in intel-ligence and pel-lucid. 



26 



WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 



Non- 9 not 




Ob-, modified into\ 


Oc- before c 


in front of, 


Of- „ / 


H against ; 


Op- „ p 




Omni-, all ; 


Per-, through, thoroughly ; 


Post, after ; 


Pre-, before ; 


Prefer-, past; 


Pro-, Gallicized into) 

p t [forward, forth ; 


Quadr-, four ; 


T J d _ \ back, again ; 


Pietro-, backwards ; 


Se-, apart, away ; 


Semi-, half ; 


Sub-, modified into^ 




Sue- before c 




Suf- „ f 


under, or, up from 


Sug- „ g 
Sup- „ ^ 


under ; 


Sur- ,, r 




Su(«) ,,5 J 


Super- Gallicized intO)^ ovp . 


SW- 


I 



Trans- or tra-, 1 across ; 
Tri-, thrice ; 



non-entity. 

ob-stacle. 

oc-currencei 

of-fend. 

op-pose. 

omni-potent. 

per-fect. 

post-pone. 

pre-cursor. 

preter-natural. 

pro-pose. 

pur-pose. 

quadr -o on. 

re-duce. 

red-eem. 

retro -spective. 

se-cede. 

semi-colon. 

sub-terraneous. 

suc-cour. 

suf-fer. 

sug-gest. 

sup-press. 

sur-render. 

su(s)-spect. 

super-fluous. 

sur-feit. 

trans-itive, tra-mon- 

tane. 
tri-ple, tri-partite. 



1 Gallicized into tres- in tres-pass. 



WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 



27 



Ultra-,* beyond, advance ; 
Un-, ) 
Urn-, r" 1 



ultra-liberal, 
un-animous. 
uni-form. 



17. Greek Prefixes; 



A-, modified into ^ .,, , 

i [without; 
An- beiore vowels ) 

Amphi-, on both sides ; 

Ana-, up, up to, according to ; 

Anti-,) 
, r against, opposite to; 

Aph-y) 

Arch-, } ft *. 

Archi-,) 

Auto-, ) 

Aut- before a vowel j • ' 

Cata-,\ 

Cath-, I down, thoroughly ; 

Cat-, J 

Deca-, ten 

Di-, 3 two ; 

Dia-, through ; 

Bys-, ill ; 

Ec-, modified into \ 

Ex-, before a vowel) ' J 



a-pathy. 

an-archy. 

amphi-bious. 

ana-lysis, ana-logy. 

anti-septic. 

ant-arctic. 

apo-gee. 

aph-orism. 

arch- an gel. 

archi-tect. 

auto-crat. 

aut-opsy, aut-hentic. 

cata-strophe. 

cat-hedral. 

cat-egorical. 

deca-gon. 

di-phthong. 

dia-meter. 

dys -peptic. 

ec-lectic. 

ex-orcism. 



1 In the word ultra-montane it has a prepositional force, but usually it is 
employed as an adjective, or adverb, meaning " very " or " excessive." 

2 Use Etymological Dictionary. Explanation is purposely omitted. 

3 An erroneous distinction is often made in spelling the words di-syllable, 
and trisyllable, by inserting an unnecessary s in the former. 



28 



WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 



En-, modified into "j 
Em- before m, b, or p yin, on ; 
El- before I. ) 

Endo-, within ; 
Epi- modified into 
Ep- before a vowel or 
Eu-, 1 well; 
Exo-, 2 outside ; 



»} 



on : 



Hemi-, half; 

Hexa-, six ; 

Hetero-, different ; 

Hepta-, seven ; 

Hier-, sacred ; 

Holo-, whole ; 

Homo-, together, similar; 

Hydr-, water. 

Hyper-, above, above measure ; 

Hypo-, modified into ) , 

Hyp- before a vowel or h ) 

Meta-, modified into 

Met- before a vowel or h ) 

Mono-, modified into| 

Mon- before a vowel) ' 

OrtJio- right ; 

Oxii-, modified into) .-, , 

J ' [tacia, sharp, 

Ox- before a vowel, ) 

Pan-, all ; 

Para-, modified into | beside . 

Par- before a vowel) 



after, change; 



en-comium. 
em-phasis. 
el-liptical. 
endo-genous. 
epi-taph. 

ep-hemeral, ep-och. 
eu-phony. 
exo-genous, exo-tic, 

exo-teric. 
hemi-stich. 
hexa-meter. 
hetero-geneous. 
hepta-gon. 
hier-archy. 
holo-caust. 
homo-geneous. 
hydr-aulic. 
hyper-critical, 
hypo-thesis, 
hyp-hen. 
meta-phor. 
met-hod. 
mono-graph, 
mon-arch. 
ortho-epy. 
oxy-gen, oxy-tone. 
ox-ide. 
pan-oply. 
para-site, 
par-helion. 



1 In Utopia then is the Greek ou," no "so that w-fc/Mameans" no-place." 

2 Eso-, " into," is found only in eso-terlc. 



WOKDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 



29 



Pent a-, five ; 

Peri-, round 

Philo-, modified into \ , . 

Phil- before a vowel j 

Poly-, many; 

Pro-, before ; 

Pros-, towards ; 

Pseudo-, modified into) 

ri 
Pseud- before a vowel j 

Syn- modified into 

Syl- before I 

Sym- ,, b, m, OYp, 



Sy- „ s and z 
Tri-, three ; 



-with; 



penta-teuch. 

peri-od. 

philo-logy. 

phil-anthropy. 

poly-pod. 

pro-gnostic. 

pros-elyte. 

pseudo-philosopher. 

pseud-onym. 

syn-opsis, syn-chronize. 

syl-lable. 

sym-bol, sym-metry, 
sym-pathy. 

sy-stem, sy-zygy. 

tri-glyph. 



The meanings of these words are not given, in order that 
the pupil may find out their meanings for himself, in a 
dictionary if necessary, and may carefully trace the meaning 
of the prefix in the compound word. 



18. Teutonic Prefixes. 

The following verbal prefixes are of importance — 

Be- and en- convert a noun into a trans, verb : x be-fool. 
Un- (with sense of negation) un-sex. 

For-, fore- (German ver, connected with from or fro), from, 
away. Thus, 



1 lie also makes an adjective and an intr. verb trans., as be-grim(e), 
be-howl. 



30 WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 

For-bear, to keep one's self away from ; forswear, to swear 

away from the truth. 
For-give, to give away ; fore-done (Spencer), made away with, 

wearied. This must be distinguished from 
Fore-, beforehand ; fore-tell. 

Gain- (a-gainst), opposition ; gain-say. 

With- (not our modern with, but German wider), against ; — 

with-hold, with- stand. 

19. Affixes. 

A knowledge of the affixes is not so necessary for un- 
derstanding words as the knowledge of prefixes. We all 
know that liar is one who lies, without being told that -ar 
signifies a male agent. But some of the affixes have under- 
gone curious corruptions which have obscured them. It is 
as well to know that sweet-heart has nothing to do with the 
heart, nor coward with herding coxes. A list of the principal 
affixes liable to be misunderstood is therefore appended. 

Noun Affixes in Alphabetical Okder. 1 

affix. meaning. example. 

-age (French), condition, vassal-^. 

„ ,, result of action, break-^^. 

99 „ collective notion, herb-ogre. 

-ar, -er (Anglo- j ma]e agen ^ W, brew-.r. 
Saxon), / 

1 Only those affixes which seem to have some definite meaning (for ex- 
ample, more definite than the Lat. -ion, and -// in victory or symmetry, 
affixes denoting a noun, or little more) are inserted in this and the follow- 
ing lists. Those which explain themselves, as -less, -full, arc also omitted. 



-eer (Fr.), -yer 
(A.-S.), -ier,- 
(Fr.), 



WOKDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 31 

AFFIX. MEANING. EXAMPLE. 

I augmentative, often] cow -ard, br agg- art 
with opprobrious r but also 

meaning, J sweet-heart (-ard). 

I place or person adapt- ) 
ed for some purpose! 1 *' 

p . 1 lapicL-rtr?/. 

or profession, ; r J 

-cule (L.), diminutive, corpus -cute. 

-ee (Fr.), object of an action, nomin-00. 

'personal, indicating) . 

.... . [mon-eer, how -yer, 

profession, otten mi- r r J 

,., grenad-z<?r. 

[ htary, ; 8 

-el (A.-S.), sometimes instrument shov-el. 

. ,. q . fsatch-<?Z, gard-(i.#. 

-en, -e ( .- ., | sometimes diminutive J yardWw, lane-**, 
or Fr.), ) / 

{ ipock-et. 

-ery(Seeri/, below). 

-head,-hood (A.-S.), condition, \%° " ' man " 

v ' I Jwod. 

(personal, indicating) 
-ician (Greek), [ profession> ] rhetoi -ician. 

-icle (L.), diminutive, part-zcJe. 

-ic (G-r.), art, science, rhetor-ie, log-ic. 

(originally a mere ad- j e pidem-fc, Anacre- 
i jective termination, j ont-ze. 

,. ~, t • i- (farth-(i.£. fourth) - 

-mg (A.-S.) ? diminutive, \ . v y 

I creed, school of phi-\ dogmat-ww, Pla- 
-ism (Gr.), j losophy, a state (of L ton-ism, aneur- 

[ disease), j i SMm 

-ist (See st, below), 
-kin (A.-S.), diminutive, lamb-Am 



32 WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 

AFFIX. MEANING. EXAMPLE. 

-Ie(A.-S.), form of / instrument, or dimio d .^ noz .^ 

-el (See above), 1 nutive, J 

-le (L.), originally adiminutive cast-Ze, circ-7<?. 



-le(d)ge, 

(A.-S.), 
-let (A.-S.), 
-ling (A.-S.), 
-ness (A.-S.), 
-ock (A.-S.), 

-ow (A.-S.), 



I state, 

diminutive, 
diminutive, 
a state, 
diminutive, 

diminutive, 



-red (A.-S.), 
-ry, -ery (A.-S), 

„ „ (Ft-), 

-ship (A.-S.), 
-st (Gr.), 

-ster (A.-S.), 

-tie (Gr.), See -ic, 
above. 

-tory (L.), 

-y. 1 



state, 

collective, 
also an art, 



condition, 

,a profession, 
1 Latinized in 



(know -ledge, wed- 
1 lock. 

eye-let, stream-Z^. 

duck-ling. 

ful(l)-ness 

hi\\-ock. 
jsh(o)all-ow, pil(e)l- 
( ow. 

(hat(e)-raZ, kind- 
i red. 

rook-en/, gent-ry. 

gami-ery. 
(jewel-(l)ery, devil- 
1 ry. 

(wor(ih)-shi2), 
X friend- ship. 
} gymnast, sophi-st, 
) dentin, arti-si. 



(once feminine agent,) 

\ ° fspin-ster, game -ster. 

( now agent, ) 



place, 
place of, 



(dornii-ton/, lava- 
X tory. 

smith-?/, lob-(b)y 

stith-^. 



1 Also often used in nouns derived from nouns, foll-y, bastard-y, and a 
very common Greek and Latin termination. 



WOKDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 



33 



20. Adjective Affixes. 



-aceous (L.), of the class of; 
-able, -ible (L.), able to, likely 

to, transitive or intrans- 
itive ; 
-ean (Gr.), from Greek proper 

names ; 
-ferous (L.), productive of ; 
-fold (A.-S.), repetition ; 
-ian (Lat.), from Latin and 

English or Anglican • 

proper names ; 
-ish (A.-S.), (comparative 

force), somewhat; 
-ly (A.-S.), like, of the 

nature of; 
-ose (L.), 



full of, 
intensive ; 



modified into 
-ous (L.), 
-some (A.-S.), full of; 
-tive (L.), able to, inclined to ; 
-tory, -sory (L.), of a nature 
to; 



heih- aceous. 

teiY-ible (trans.), e&t-able 
(in trans.) 



Msckyhean. 
■pest-i-ferous. 
mmi-fold. 

I Yir gil-ian. 
Johnson-i<m. 
Shakspear-itm. 

led-d-ish. 

man-fo/, heaven-Z?/. 
fverb-os^. 

[em-i-ous. 
glad-some, 
sens-i-tive, talk-SL-tive. 

migratory, illusory. 



21, Verbal Affixes. 

-en, -er, sometimes convert an (broad-m, light-m, 

adjective into a verb ; \ hinder, ling-(long)-^r. 

-er, sometimes converts a 
verb into a frequenta- 
tive verb ; pat-t-^r, wand- (wend) -er. 

3 



34 WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION 

-el, -le, sometimes converts 



draw-(e)?, nib -(nip) -b-le, 
grov- (grope)-cL 



a verb into a frequenta- 
tive verb ; 

-fy (Fr.), has the meaning of mo\li-fy (to make soft). 
make ; 



22, Derivation is secondary to Induction. — It has 

been stated that the method of derivation is insufficient 
for ascertaining the meaning of a word. This will be more 
apparent after considering the various forms in which a 
single Latin root can manifest itself. 

(Latin.) Fac, make or do. 
Fact, Factor, Factious — 
af-, af-fect, &f-jection, a£-jectmg, objected, sS-ject- 

ation, etc. 
con-, con-jfec-tioner. 

de-, de-ject, de-jfoient, de-/cc-tively. 

e-, ef-, ei-fect, ef-jfoacious, ef-^c-iently. 

in-, in-ject-ion, etc. 

op-, (a work), of-jc-e. 
per-, per-yktf-ion. 

pre-, -pie-feet. 

pro-, pro-jfc-ient. 

re-, re-jec-toYj. 

sub-, suf-, suf-jfa-ient. 

We have still to consider the compounds in which the 
Latin root appears under a French form. 

(French.) Fait, feat, feit, fit, fy, etc. 

Feat, com - jit, je as -ible, de-jeat, BW-jeit, counter-/*//, -pro -jit, 
horri-/// and many other verbs in -fy. 

Nothing but a knowledge of idiomatic English could show 



WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 35 

the difference between pro-yfc-ient and yro-jit, or could enable 
us to distinguish the various meanings of d£-fect, &f-fect-e&. 
And in tracing these changes of meaning we also require a 
knowledge of idiomatic Latin. The mere knowledge of the 
meanings of in- and con- would not enable us safely to 
explain how from a common root there sprang two words so 
different as con-^otioner and in^c-tion, unless we pos- 
sessed some knowledge of Latin. Where, however, the two 
processes of induction and analysis are used together, each 
has its value. It will be a good exercise to trace the known 
meanings of the words in the appended list back to the 
meaning of the root. An English Etymological Dictionary 
may be used. 

23. Latin Roots. 

Ag-, Act-i, set in motion. 
Ag-ile, amb-^-uity, nav-w/-ation, ex-ig-ency. 

Cap-, cip-, -cept, take. 
Anii- cip-sde, capt-ive, con- cept -ion, ex-cept. 

Capit-, head. 
Capit-al, cap>it-ula,te, chapt-er, chap-el, coip-oial. 2 

Curb-, curs-, run. 
Curr-ency, curs-ory, suc-conr. 

Die-, say. 
In-dite 9 vei-dict, in-dic-ative, m-dex, dic-i&tor. 

1 Verbs in Latin usually form the passive participle by adding t to the root. 
Thus audi-, hear, " audi-ence," appears in the form "audit.'' Where, 
however, the root ended in d, I, n, v, g, modifications were made for 
euphony. This explains why two apparently different roots are often found 
side by side, e.g., ced-e, cession; im-pel, im-puls-e ; tend, tens-ion 
solv-e, solu-tion ; ag-ent, act-ion. 

2 Some, however, consider that the French caporal is itself a corruption 
of corporal. 



36 WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 

Da-, dit-, give. 
Ad-d, dat-e, e-dit, swcren-der. 

Fer-, irregular lat-, bring, bear. 
Con-fer-ence, re-fer-ee, di-lat-ory, fer-iile, super-to-ive, 
re-to-ive. 

Gen-, gener-, a race. 
De-gener-&te, gener-olize, indi-#<m-ous, m-gen-uitj. 

Jung-, junct-, join. 
Jimct-me, joint-wee, sub -junct-ive. 

Manu-, hand. 
Mann-i&ctwce, mort-main, qyL&drxi-manous. 

Mitt-, miss-, send. 
Vre-mise, 1 com-mzss-ion, de-mise, dis-miss. 

Nasc-, nat-, be born. 
Xasc-ent, nat-wee, un-7ia£-ural, super-?i«£-ural, nat-iovL. 

Nose-, learn, nota-, mark. 
Not-ion, no-hle, de-note, con-note. 

Pend-, pens-, hang, weigh (money). 
Com-^>67?s-ation, mde-pend-ence, expense, equi-jwise, pens- 
ive. 

Plic-, plex-,/o/^. 
Ex-jjlic-it, im-ply, sim-ple, dou-ble, sup-j9?/c-ate. 

Pose-, pos-, place. 
Com-^os-ition, jjos-itive, re-jwse, swp-pose. 

Beg-, rect-, make straight. 
Cov-rect, roy-td, reg-ion, reg-imen. 

Hog-, ask. 
Vre-rog-ative, ob-rog-nte, pro-/w/-ue, de-rog-tite. 

1 Sometimes spelt premiss in logic. 



WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 37 

SED-, SID-, SESS-, sit. 

B>esid-num, assize, ses-sions, subsid-y. 

Sequ-, secut-, follow. 
Ex-(s)ee-ute, con-sequ-enee, sequ-el, en-sue, obsequ-ies, sue, 
suite. 

Solv-, solut-, loose (the restraint of debt). 
Solve, absolv-e, absol-nte, solv-ent, solu-ble, dissolut-e, 
resolv-e, 

Spec-, spic-, see. 
Gon-spic-VLOVLS, respect, despite, suspic-ion, cirenmsj^ect, 

auspic-es. 

Sta-, stat-, Stic-, stand. 
Stat-e, statistics, circum-sta-nce, con-sta-nt, ex-ta-nt, in- 
sta-nee, msta-nt, ob-sta-cle, inter-s£ic-e, sol-s£ic-e, stat-ion, 
sub-sta-nce. 

Tend-, tens-, stretch, direct one's path. 
Tend, at-tend-2in.ee, tens-ion, in-tent-\on, tend-on, in-tens- 

ity. 

Trac-, tract-, draw, manage. 
Treat, treat-j, treat-ise, abs-tract, eon-tract, re-tract, re- 
treat, dis-tract, sub-tract, tract-able, tract, train, trait, por- 

tray. 

Yen-, vent-, come. 

Conventional, eo-ven-ant, eon-vent, nre-vent, a-ven-ue, 

re-ven-ne, supervene, eireum-vent. 

Vert-, vers-, turn. 
Con-vert, eon-verse-\y, divers-ion, di-vorce, di-verse, re- 
vers-ion, re-verse, ad-vert, ad-verse, ner-vert, tra-verse, trans- 
verse, t'ers-atile, vers-ed (in), and hence malvers-ation, conr 

vers- ation, etc. 

Vid-, vis-, see. 
Provis-ional, provid-ence, e-vid-eni, en-vy, nro-vis-o. 



38 WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 

Volv-, voLUT-, roll. 
In-to/?tf-ion, e-roto-ion, re-roZirt-ion, con-ro?w£-ion, vault 
(verb and noun). 

24. Greek Roots. 

The Greek roots are less common and less disguised 
by change than the Latin. Hence there is little scope for 
ingenuity in tracing a Greek root, like a Latin root, through 
various disguises. But there is a peculiar utility in the 
study of Greek roots. As the Greek compounds are 
generally used for scientific purposes in technical meanings, 
they have not been subjected to the modifications of popular 
usage ; they (for the most part) still retain their original 
meanings, which can be deduced at once from a knowledge 
of the roots. Moreover, new terms are being continually 
created by combinations of these roots for technical pur- 
poses. Thus, take the root iso-, equal, demo-, people, arch-, 
rule, and log-, discourse. Is-archy might be invented to mean 
"equality of rule," or dem-archy to mean "the rule of 
the people," and demo-logy and arch-o-logy might represent 
"the science of peoples" and "the science of government." 
As these words do not often occur in conversation, they must 
be learned by study, and if the reader has not studied Greek 
he is recommended to master the meanings of the appended 
words, referring to a dictionary when it is necessary, and 
ascertaining how the meaning of the compound is deduced 
from the meanings of the roots. Thus, " epi-tfem-ic means 
that which is over or on a people." It is an adjective with 
disease understood, and is therefore a short way of saying 
a disease spreading over a whole people. 

Some of the compounds have been purposely omitted, in 



WOKDS DEFINED BY DEEIVATION. 



39 



order that the pupil may be on the alert to suggest ad 

ditional compounds. 

Anthropo-, man; 

Arch-, prior (in time or in 

rank) ; 
Aster- astro-, star ; 



anthropo -logy. 
arc/i-aism, heipt-arch-y. 



Bed-, throw; 

Biblio-, book ; 

Bio-, life ; 

Ceico-, bad ; 

Chron-, time ; 

Cosm-, world or ornament ; 

Creit-, (crac-y), govern- 
ment ; 

Grit- (cris-), judge ; 

Crypt-, cryp-, secret ; 

Cycl-, circle ; 

Bern-, people ; 

Box-, opinion ; 

Byneim-, force ; 

Erg-, org-, urg-, work ; 

Gam-, marriage ; 

Ge-, earth ; 

Gen-, kind ; 

Graph-, greim-, write, or 
draw, written ; 

Heelron, a seat, flat side of 
a solid : 

Helio-, sun ; 

Hod- (ocl-), way ; 

Hyelr-, water; 



eister-isk, eistro-logy, eistro -nomy, 
hyiper-bole, para-fe, "ovo-blem, 

sym-bol. 
biblio -m&nm. 
ceno-bi-te. 
caco-phony. 
iso-chron-ous. 
cosm- etic, micro -cosm. 

bureau-crac-y. 

era-is, hy^o-crite. 

cr?/£tf-o-gamous, apo-cn/p-hal, 

en-cyclo-Tpee&m. 

eipi-dem-ic, 

para-cfoa?. 

hydro- dynetm-ics. 

en-erg-y, met&ll-urg-y, org-sm, 

orypto-#am-ia, 

apo-^6*. 

homo-gen-eous. 

tele-greiph, par-allelo-^raw,. 

^o\j -heelron, 

^Qri-helion. 
met-hod, peri-od. 
%dr-ates, cleTps-ydra, 



40 



WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 



Idio-, peculiar ; 
Iso-, equal ; 
Leg-, choose, speak; 
Litho-, stone ; 
Log-, discourse, science ; 
Lysis-, melting, weakening 
Mechan- (Lat. machin-), 
machine ; 

Metr- (-meter), measure ; 

Mon-, alone ; 

Naus- (naut), ship ; 

Neo-, new ; 

Nom-, law, measure out ; 

Ode-, song ; 

Onym-, name ; 

Paid-, peed-, boy ; 

Path-, suffering, feeling ; 

Phan- (j)hen-,fan-), cause 

to appear ; 
Pharmac-, drug ; 
Phil-, friend, love; 
Phon-, sound; 
Phrasis-, speaking; 
Phys-, nature ; 
Plas-, mould, shape ; 
Polis-, a country ; 
Pod-, foot ; 
Poi-, make ; 
Proto-, first ; 
Psych-, soul ; 
Pter-, wing; 



idio-t, idio-syncrasy. 
iso -thermal. 

ec-le(g)c-tic, le(g)x-icon. 
litho -gr&phy, mono-lith. 
dm-log-ue, apo-Zo#-y. 
; ema-lysis, para-fo/sis. 

v mechan-ism. 

(sym-m^tr-y, hydro -meter, tri-gon- 
1 o-metr-y. 

mono-tony, ??wmo-poly. 

aero-naut, naus-e&. 

neo -phyte. 

&stro-nom-y, eco-iiom-y. 

rhaps-od-y, par-od-y. 

raet-onym-y, onomat-o-rycem. 

paid-eutics, £>«d-o-baptism. 

path-o-logy, sym-path-y. 

I 2)han-t&sm,fan-cy, jihen-omenon. 

pharmac -o-poeia. 

phil-teY, jc/u7-o-soph-er. 

sym-phon-y, jihon-etic. 

iperi-jrfirasis. 

met&-phys-ics, jihys-i-o-logy. 

plas-tic, proto-plasm. 

polit-ics, cosmo-polit<\ polic-e. 

anti-podes, poly-;>?/s-. 

onomat-o-jo^w. 

proto-co\, proto --plasm. 

met-em-jw^/c/t-osis, y^/c/z-o-logy. 

lepido-^/</v/. 



WOEDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 



41 



Scop-, watch ; 
SojjJi-, wise ; 
Stick-, verse ; 
Stroph-, a turning ; 
Techn-, art ; 

The-, thet-, thes-, put ; 

Theo-, God ; 
Tom-, cut, divide ; 
Ton-, tone ; 
Trop-, turn; 
Top-, place ; 
Typ-, pattern ; 
Zoo-, animal; 



scop-e, tele-scope. 

soph-ist, philo-sop/i-er. 

distich, acrostic. 

&postroph-ize, c&t&stroph-e. 

techn-iesl, ipoly-technic. 
jhypo-£/i?s-is, the-me, ev)i-thet, anti- 
( thes-is, ysLY-en-thes-is, syn-thes-i$. 

theo-logy ; poly-^A^-ism. 

&-tom, eipi-tom-e, ana-fom-y. 

mono-fcm-y, ton-ic. 

trop-e, troji-ical. 

top -ic, U-fop-ia. 

ty^o-graphy, moke-type, &nti-type. 

£0-diac, zoo-phyte. 



Phonetic Laws of Derivation. 

25. National Preferences.— Grimm's Law.— When a 
word, as, for instance, three, is found in similar forms in dif- 
ferent languages, it is natural to account for the differences 
by saying that the several forms suited the several nations. 
"Drei" we might say, " was easier to pronounce for the Ger- 
mans, tres for the Latins, three for the English." This theory 
has been justified by the collection of a large number of 
instances of changes differing similarly in the different lan- 
guages. In the example just now mentioned, t, d, and th, 
which are all consonants pronounced by the action of the 
tongue on the teeth, are interchanged ; and this might sug- 
gest that the national preference, when rejecting a consonant, 
replaces it by some consonant uttered by the same organs 
as the first. This suggestion is warranted by fact. It has 



42 



WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 



been shown by Grimm that the same words when found in 
(1) Sanscrit, Greek, or Latin, (2), Low German (which may- 
be represented by English), (3), High German, exhibit three 
systematically varying forms, in which three different conso- 
nants of the same organ are regularly found. 






26. Classification of Consonants. — I. Consonants 
can be arranged according to the organs by which they are 
pronounced: (1) labials; (2) dentals, or palatals ; (3) guttu- 
rals. II. They can also be arranged according to the na- 
ture of the exit of the sound. The air may be entirely 
stopped, as in (1) checks; or some may be allowed to 
escape, as in (2) breathings ; or the air may pass through 
the nose, as in (3) nasals. To these three classes are added 
(4) the aspirates, and (5) r and I, which are called trills. 
III. Again, of consonants uttered by the same organ, as p 
and b, t and d, one is harder than the other ; and this in- 
troduces another distinction, (1) hard, (2) soft. See the table 
illustrating all these distinctions, at the end of the book. 

The following table will be sufficient to illustrate Grimm's 
law : — 





HAED. 


SOFT. 


ASPIRATE. 


Dentals 


t 


d 


th 


Labials 


P 


b 


ph 


Gutturals 


k, c' 


g 1 


ch 



1 Hard. 



WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 



43 



27. Grimm's Law is that a hard consonant in (1) San- 
scrit, Greek, or Latin hecomes the corresponding aspirate 
in (2) Low German (English), and the corresponding soft 
consonant in (3) High German ; and that aspirates and softs 
in (1) are modified in a corresponding manner. The law 
may be exhibited thus : — 



Sanscrit, Greek, Latin 


Hard 


Aspirate 


Soft 


Low German (English) 


Aspirate 


Soft 


Hard 


High German 


Soft 


Hard 


Aspirate 





Examples. 






Dentals 


[Sans., Gr., or Lat. 
\ English 
(High German 


Tres 

Three 

Drei 


T/mgater 
Daughter 
Tochter 


Duo 
Two 
Zwei 


Labials 


[Sans., Gr., or Lat. 
\ English 
(High German 


Hejjta 
Set en 
Siefren 


Frater 

Drother 

[Pruoder 1 ] 


LaM 
S-lip 
Shli/ian 


Gutturals 


[Sans,, Gr., or Lat. 
A English 
I High German 


Cor 

ileart 

flerz 


FZbrtus 
harden 

[Zarteni] 


Amek/ein 

Mil* 

Milch 



1 Old forms. 

2 (a) The scarcity of aspirated consonants causes many exceptions. 
Other causes of irregularity are (b) the degree to which the High Germans 
have assimilated their language to that of the Low Germans; (c) the com- 
bination of consonants, as st, sp, etc., where the s protects the t andp from 
the change. 



44 WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 

Exercises. 1 

(1.) Dental and Palatal Changes. — Illustrate by lizard, 
eat, mead (honey), tame, thou, thin, treasure, deal, father, 
mother, weather, this, (Ital.) mezzo, meaning ' middle,' 
dozen, groat (Germ, groschen), street (Germ, strasse), 
that, deer [Germ, thier pronounced teer\, door, 
water. 

(2.) Labial Changes. — Illustrate by nephew, wife, troop, 
flat, father, tavern, chivalry, beef, provost. 

(3.) Guttural Changes. — Illustrate by dragon, gross, guitar, 
yesterday, cherry, chain, chair, radish, fashion, parish, 
meagre, yoke. (Y m y-clept, y-clad, is a form of the old 
participial prefix ge-.) 

28. Other changes of Consonants — H and s are 

sometimes found commuted, as in hall (Germ, saal), six 
(Lat. sex, Gr. hex). 

A consonant coalescing with the following vowel may 
undergo modification, as in English when t is followed by 
ion, ti is pronounced almost like sh. This may explain how 
from Lat. cavea there comes cage, and from Lat. rabies comes 
rage. 

G, when (as sometimes in German) a soft guttural, is 
scarcely audible. Hence A.-S. provincial gif by the side of if. 
Many French words exchanged the old initial w for gu (where 
the g is now hard, but once seems to have been an aspirate). 
Compare Old Fr. warantir with modern garantir, and 
Teutonic war with guerre ; wise with guise ; wile with guile. 

The interchanging of r and Hsa common fault in children. 

1 An Etymological Dictionary is to be used, which gives the kindred 
words, so that a knowledge of German, or any other language but English, 
is not necessary. 



WOEDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 45 

"horn (Germ, ver-loren, " lost ") and "lost are the same 
words. R and s are also interchanged, as in " frore " 2 and 
" frost.'' 

29. Contraction. — (a) In the Middle of the "Word. — 
As a rule, French words, and English words derived from 
Latin through French, drop some part of the original word ; 
thus, from the Latin desiderium and civitas we have desire and 
city. Compare the pronunciation of Gloucester, Leicester, etc. 

Exercise. — Illustrate by palsy, doubt, marvel, moiety, 
treason, miscreant, peril, poor, priest, surname, muster, mea- 
sure, glaive, grant, chance, blame, count, cost, daunt, due, 
gourd, preacli, rill, seal, sure. 

(b) Loss of Prefix. — Uncle 2 from avunculus ; strange from 
extraneus, sample from exemplum, scarce from Low Lat. ex- 
carpsus (from ex and carpo), sprain from exprimo, soar from 
exaurare. 

(c) Loss of Affix, or part of it. — Page from pagina, 
pill from pillula. Illustrate by coy, cull, dame. 

30. Extension. — (a) Addition. — Two forms of the same 
verb are often found in English, differing only in that one 
has an initial s. Thus plash, splash, melt, smelt. 

(b) Repetition of Consonants. — Corporal from caporal, 3 
registrar from register, partridge from perdrix, Fr. ; perdix, 
Lat.; velvet from velluto, tapestry from tapisserie, Fr. These 
are cases of the repetition of a striking letter already in the 
word. 

1 Milton, P. i., it 595. 

2 The av is the root of the word. 

3 This is. however, denied by some. Caporal may itself be a corruption of 
corporal. ' 



46 WOKDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 

The following are instances where a weak syllable is 
strengthened ; tremere becoming tremr, 1 or trend, requires a 
b, trembl(e), and cinres (from cineres) becomes cindres, 
cinders. 

Thus -incere, -ingere, and -angere, in Latin, regularly be- 
come -aincre, -eindre, -aindre in French, where the nasal 71 
receives some additional support. 

Exercise. — Illustrate by remember, passenger, messenger, 
impregnable, semblance, assembly; counter from contra 
(through contr) receives the e as an equivalent for the last 
vowel, and also has its first syllable strengthened. 

Accent influences spelling by sometimes necessitating the 
lengthening of a syllable which receives an accent, and by 
lightening the syllable which loses the accent. Thus conseil, 
counsel, suffaucare, suffocate, ordino, ordain, crevasse, crevice. 
Venison in English is nearly vert son: hence it is spelt venison, 
instead of Fr. venaison. 

Addition after m and n Final. — Climb from cli-man, A.-S., 
sound from soun, yond from yon. Compare in Elizabethan 
English vild from vil (Fr.), gownd for gown. 2 

31. Liquid Changes. — The insertion or omission of a 
vowel is particularly common with -re and -er, -le and -el. 
Thus render, and the whole class of French-derived verbs 
in -er, from rendre (Fr.) etc., and table, fable, etc., from 
the Latin tabula, fabula, etc. Here sometimes a vowel is 
omitted, as in passing from Lat. reddere to Fr. rende(e)re t 
Then the former e is re-inserted, and the latter omitted in 

1 The termination was absolutely cut off in Old French. 

2 Extension may be sometimes explained by the important law that, iu 
Romance languages, nouns follow the Latin crude form, rather than the 
nominative form. Hence, French nation (not nutio). Sopont {not pons). 



WOEDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 47 

passing from Fr. rendre to Eng. render (e). So (1) Lat. tabula, 
(2) Fr. tab(u)le, (3) Eng. tab-el (in sound). This is easily 
explained by the fact that a kind of burr or half-vowel 
accompanies the effort to pronounce a liquid. Thus there 
is a half- vowel concealed before I in jugg(e)ler, and after any 
strongly-pronounced r. So sirrah, the emphatic form of sir. 
Sometimes this looks like transposition, as in (Lancashire) 
brid for bird. Illustrate by entertain, troop, purpose, crimson. 

32, Assimilation of Vowels.— There is a tendency to 
assimilate the vowels before, and after, liquid or light com- 
binations of consonants. Hence, when a preceding vowel is 
changed in the passage from one language to another, the 
following vowel is often similarly changed. Thus sinorogdus, 
Lat., becomes esnieralde, old Fr., emerald, Eng. ; mzrabilia 
becomes maravigria It., merveilles Fr. : bfloncia, Lat., be- 
comes btfkince. 1 So, -ren being more distinct than er, forces 
assimilation in brother, brethren, and in the pronunciation of 
child, children, woman, women. 

Changes of Meaning in Derivation. 

33. — It was shown above that it is not always possible to 
deduce the exact meaning of an English word derived from 
the Latin, e.g., oppress, from a knowledge of the meaning of 
the Latin original. The changes of meaning which a word 
undergoes in passing from one language and from one age 
to another are too various and subtle to admit of classifi- 
cation that shall be at once exact and brief. But a few 
general laws may be specified. 

34. (1) The Law of Change.— It is almost impossible 

1 Compare the modification of the vowel in German monosyllabic nouns 
that "make their plural in -er, as mann, manner, where the d is pronounced 
like our e in men. 



48 WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 

that a word should retain precisely the same meaning for a 
long time together. The name of a definite object, e.g., cherry, 
pear, plum, fig, may be handed down unchanged ; but there 
will probably be some changes in the associations suggested 
by the word, as in prune, raisin, and still more in beef, pork, 
and mutton. As thought and circumstances change, some 
changes in the meaning of a word are almost inevitable. 
Some words that were once vulgar become respectable, 
others that were once recondite become popular ; but in 
any case a change of some kind is probable, and especially 
when the word passes from one language into another, where 
it has to fight for its existence, and acquire a province of its 
own after a struggle with the native synonyms. Illustrate 
by blame (blasphemare), ark (area), cease (cessare), chalk [calx, 
not cretci), chivalry (caballus, not equus), chair (cathedra), mop 
(mappa), cash (capsa), chant (cantare), claim (clamare), couch 
(collocare), a count (comes), desk, dish (discus), fail (fallo), 
fan (v annus, not flabellum), frock (floccus), frown (frons), 
coast (costa), juice (jus), lace (laqueus), noise (noxia), pain 
(pama), pay (pacare), place (platea), praise (prctiare), preach 
(predicare), rest (restare), scent (sentire), spice (species), sue 
(sequor), sure (securus), taint (ductus), tense (tempus), test 
(testis), toast (tostus), try (terere), jest (gesta). 

35. (2) The Law of Contraction.— This law is natural 
in civilized society. As a nation develops, the national 
thought is developed, and becoming more definite and com- 
plicated recognizes more distinctions, and requires new words 
to express them. Hence, as the number of words increases, 
the province of each word diminishes. 

This is especially exemplified by words denoting measure- 
ment. In the early stages of language a stick, an arm, or 



WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 49 

foot, a bag, a furrow's ordinary length, an ordinary field, 
were sufficiently definite measurements. In course of time 
the measurements were more closely defined, and the words 
which expressed them for the most part lost their original 
and general meaning, and were narrowed down to their new 
technical meaning of measurement. Thus, though foot and 
stone still have their double meanings, yard no longer 
means " wand " or " stick " ; acre no longer means "a 
field," nor furlong "a furrow-long," moy peck (or poke) "a 
bag," nor bushell a " little box." 

We may naturally expect that Latin words denoting very 
common things and actions will find their meaning contracted 
when introduced into English. Having the word " sing," 
we have no need of the Latin " cantare," but we can use it 
for a special meaning, " chant." We do not want " praedicare " 
for " declare," or " state," but we can conveniently use it for 
" preach." Having the English " follow," we do not want 
" sequor," but we can use it for a legal kind of following, 
" sue." It may be added that all these Latin-derived words 
in very common use (which are mostly monosyllabic) come 
to us through the French, from a very early period. During 
the dark ages which followed the overthrow of the Eoman 
empire by the barbarians, the Latin language was debased. 
The polite, language was forgotten, and the colloquial talk 
of peasants and slaves became the ordinary vehicle of 
expression. Hence caballus, not equus, pacare, not solvere 
or pendere, bulla or cupa, not poculum, originated our 
modern chivalry, pay, bowl, and cup. 

But the same law of contraction also holds good with re- 
spect to classical Latin words introduced later into English. 
And here we have the advantage of being able to trace the 
process of contraction in our own language. Amid the influx 

4 



50 WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 

of Latin words during the sixteenth century, many were intro- 
duced to express ideas that either could be or were already 
expressed in the existing English vocabulary. These words 
were at first used by English authors in their Latin sense. 
Thus, speculation (watching, looking out), in a well-known 
passage 1 of Shakspeare, is used for " the power of seeing." 
But there was no reason why our native word " sight " 
should be expelled by the Latin intruder. What was to be 
done in such a case ? In some cases the intruder was ex- 
pelled as useless ; in others, and in this particular case, the 
native word " sight" retained its meaning, and speculation, 
finding the broader room which it had once filled in 
Latin preoccupied in English, contented itself with re- 
tiring into a narrow meaning, "the sight, or looking after 
gain," or else "the looking after truth." In the same way 
extravagant, though used by Shakspeare in the sense of 
" wandering," now means a particular kind of wandering, a 
wandering beyond the bounds of economy. Exorbitant in 
Latin meant "out of the way," in Elizabethan English " un- 
common ; " now it is only applied, in a narrower signification, 
to that which is an uncommon and excessive demand. 

Illustrate this law by advertise, aggravate, capitulate, claim 
(clamare), corroborate, fable, ferocious, immunity, journal, 
mansion, modest, travel, vulgar, table, vision, camp* 

36. (3) The Law of Metaphor. — When a foreign word 
implving a simple idea, as videre "to Bee," stands side by 
side with the native word, it is natural, as has boon shown 
above, that the native word should retain its ordinary mean- 
ing, and that the foreign word should be forced to seek for 

1 Macbeth, iii. 4. 95. 



WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 51 

some side -meaning. Thus Latin compounds are often used 
to express (a) abstract and philosophical terms, as vision, 
"the power of seeing," or else (b) some extraordinary sense, 
as vision, "a spiritual revelation through the sight," or (c) 
some metaphorical use of the word, as "ipro-vident" The 
metaphorical use of Latin- derived words is very common 
indeed. It may be illustrated by extra-vagant, ex-orbitant, 
above, also by regimen, circumstance. 

37. (4) The Law of Extension. — Though the law of 
contraction is the prevalent law in derivation, yet there 
is a class of words that extend instead of contract 
their meaning. These are mostly technical words, and, 
as might be expected from the language of the Eomans, 
they for the most part concern law or war. In such 
cases the process of extension is natural. When a 
technical word is introduced from one language into 
another, the narrow technicality, after being preserved 
artificially by the learned for a time, must soon be impaired, 
and finally destroyed. Thus influence was once a technical 
term of astrology to denote the mysterious power that 
flowed from the stars upon the destinies of men : now it 
means any modifying power, and not merely that of the 
stars. The word triumph is not now confined to a pro- 
cession celebrating a victory over a conquered enemy. 
Similarly, privilege, which formerly had a technical meaning, 
" a law passed relating to an individual," now means gene- 
rally any right enjoyed by a part only of a community. 

Illustrate by decimate, idea, impediment, pomp, company, 
prevaricate, legion, prejudice, fine, pain, place (platea, a broad 
street, still retained in our technical use of " place "). 

Many technical words in Latin have assumed a slightly 



52 WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 

different technical meaning in English, as prerogative, sacra- 
ment, cash (capsa). 

38. (5) The Law of Deterioration. — The natural polite- 
ness of mankind, and perhaps a deficiency in the moral sense, 
induces men to give a soft name to moderate faults. 
"Deceitfulnes's " is palliated by being called "tact," 
" moroseness " is called " reserve," and so on. Hence 
the good names are dragged down by the bad associa- 
tions. Thus the misuse of cunning and craft has degraded 
them from a good to a bad sense. Impertinent, which once 
meant "not to the point," now involves a more serious 
charge ; officious, which meant " exact in the performance 
of duty," is now applied to a bustling busybody, and a 
libel is no longer an innocent " little book." This law is 
still in force. "A sharp fellow" is not always a term of 
praise, and sharp practice is a recognized euphemism for 
knavery. 

Historical influences may here be frequently traced, as 
in the word villain, which, from originally meaning a la- 
bourer on a farm or villa, came to mean literally a serf, and 
hence, metaphorically, a man with the qualities of a slave, 
and then, a man with any very bad qualities. Illustrate by 
churl, clown, knave. 

39. (G) The Law of Amelioration. — It is rare indeed to 
find a word like fond (foolish; O.'E.fonnc) improved by time. 
Occasionally a great moral influence like Christianity steps 
in and raises a word like liuniiHtij from being a contemptible 
fault to the level of a virtue, or ennobles a word like minister. 
Or, in quite a different way, a word that once expressed a 
fault is sometimes used in a jocose manner to imply clever- 



WORDS DEFINED BY DERIVATION. 53 

ness, as shrewd (which once meant wicked). Party-names 
sometimes exemplify this law. Whig and Tory were once 
terms of contempt. They are not now; nor, probably, is 
the word Radical. Christian has now a far nobler meaning 
than when the nickname was first invented by the populace 
of Antioch. Of the same kind are words originally implying 
noble birth, and hence transferred to nobleness of character, 
such as generous, gentle, ingenuous. 



SECOND PART. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE DICTION OF POETRY. 



40. The Diction of Poetry.— Diction comprises the 
choice, arrangement, and connection of words. As regards 
the arrangement and connection of words, Poetry and highly 
impassioned Prose are sometimes not very dissimilar ; but 
in the choice of words a marked distinction is observed by 
most of the best Prose writers. Poetry, in its different styles, 
uses almost all the words of polite Prose : but Prose avoids 
a number of words belonging to Poetic Diction. For 
example, ire, common in Poetry, is rare in good modern Prose. 

The principle of the distinction between the diction of 
prose and poetry lies in the difference of object of the two 
kinds of composition. The object of prose is, in general, to 
convey information, that of poetry to give pleasure. Hence 
the prose writer, in his choice of a word, will prefer that 
which conveys his meaning most successfully, the poet will 
prefer that which gives most pleasure. It is true that each 
sort of writer will keep both objects in view at once, but 
what is the primary object to the one will always be 
secondary to the other, and vice versa. From this general 
principle arise the following characteristics of poetic 
diction. Poetic diction is (1) archaic, and often averse to 



THE DICTION" OF POETRY. 55 

the use of colloquial words ; (2) picturesque; (3) euphonious, 
and averse to lengthiness. 

41. Poetic Diction is Archaic and Non-collo- 
quial. — (a) This often arises from the fact that the archaic 
forms are less lengthy than the modern ; but the use of 
such words as halloived for holy, sojourn for lodge, wons for 
dwells, a-weary for fatigued or tired, and other similar cases, 
cannot thus be explained. The use of thou and ye for you 
comes under the same head, (b) In elevated poetry, such 
words as woe, blissful, baleful, ken, doleful, dire, ire, thrall, 
guile, joyous, etc., are very common. Their occurrence in 
ordinary modern prose is quite exceptional. 

The explanation of the archaism of poetic diction seems to 
be this. Poetry being less conversational than prose, is less 
affected than prose is by the changes of a living language, 
and more affected by the language and traditions of the 
poetry of past ages. Not all words are adapted for metre, 
and therefore the limitations of metre in themselves are suf- 
ficient to explain the preference in poetry for certain forms 
and words. These forms and words, constantly repeated by 
successive poets, become as it were the legitimate inherit- 
ance of all who write poetry. Thus they acquire poetic 
associations in addition to their original adaptability for 
metre, and they therefore maintain their ground in poetry 
even when displaced from prose. Moreover, apart from 
poetic convention, the antique and venerable associations 
which connect themselves with everything that is ancient 
contain in themselves sufficient reason why archaic words 
should linger in elevated poetry. From such considerations 
as these, Spenser employed throughout the whole of his 
" Faery Queene " a diction which was almost as archaic to 



56 THE DICTION OF POETRY. 

his contemporaries as it is to us. In dramatic poetry, such 
words are more sparingly used, as we might naturally expect 
where the object is to set life as it is, really and vividly 
before the spectator. 

Archaic phrases, as well as archaic words, are common 
in poetry. They are for the most part shorter than the 
corresponding modern phrases, e.g., meseems for "it seems 
to me;" haply for " by chance;" as thinking for " inas- 
much as he thought;" had for " would have;" and the 
archaic use of the subjunctive to express a wish, as in 
" Time prove the rest ! " 

42. Poetic Diction is Picturesque. — Poetry should 
be " simple, sensuous, and passionate " (Milton). By 
" sensuous " is meant that which appeals readily to the 
senses, and hence poetry prefers picturesque images to 
the enumeration of dry facts. Compare the poetry of the 
following — 

The blackbird whistles from the thorny brake : 
The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove : 
Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze 
Pour'd out profusely, silent. 

The jay, the rook, the daw, 
And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone, 
Aid the full concert ; while the rock-dove breathes 
A melancholy murmur through the whole, 

Thomson's Seasons. 

with the prosaical or rather the comical effect of 

Now, too, the feather'd warblers tune their notes 
Around, and charm the listening grove. The lark, 
The linnet, chaffinch, bullfinch, goldfinch, greenfinch ! 

The Critic. 

Where pleasure is the purpose of language, it is natural 



THE DICTION OF POETRY. 57 

that each word should be adapted, as far as possible, to call 
up some image. Poetry will therefore often eschew generic 
terms, such as tree, flower, and will prefer to mention some 
particular tree or flower, as : 

And every shepherd tells his tale 
Under the hawthorn in the dale j 

where "under some tree's shade" would have been less 
picturesque, and therefore less fitted for poetry. In the 
same way, " Go, lovely rose," is far more picturesque than 
" Go, lovely flower." So far, however, poetry agrees with 
impassioned prose, which, like poetry, often selects the more 
vivid and particular, in preference to that which is vague 
and general. Prose often prefers " the lilies of the field " to 
the flowers, and u Solomon in all his glory " to '-'a glorious 
monarch." But poetry goes further than this. This is a 
characteristic of thought ; the next paragraph describes a cha- 
racteristic, not of thought, but of diction, which is peculiar 
to poetry, and inadmissible in prose. 

42 a. Pretic Diction substitutes an Epithet for 
the thing denoted. — Thus the sky can be mentioned in 
poetry as " the azure " or " the blue," as in 

Below the chestnuts when their buds 
Were glistening to the breezy blue. 

Tennyson. 

So the silent and as it were vacant midnight can be described 
as "the dead vast (waste) of the night." In the same way 
Milton uses "the dank " for water, and "the dry" for land 
as distinguished from water. We are allowed in prose to 
use adjectives for nouns, as "the dead," "the past," and 
perhaps "the right," but it is only in the hands of a very 
skilful writer that such adjective-nouns may be used in prose 



58 THE DICTION OF POETRY. 

preceded by another adjective. They are used frequently and 
with great effect by the author of Adam Bede : 

"Yet these commonplace people, many of them, bear a con- 
science, and have felt the sublime prompting to do the painful 
right ; they have their unspoken sorrows and their sacred joys, 
their hearts have perhaps gone out toward their first-born, and 
they have mourned over the irreclaimable dead." 

42b. Ornamental Epithets. — Even where so bold a 
course as the above is not adopted, epithets occupy a more 
important place in poetry than prose. They are often added 
to give colour and life to a picture, and in such cases they may 
be called ornamental epithets. Take the following examples : 

His dog attends him .... and now with many a frisk 

Wide scampering snatches up the drifted snow 

With ivory teeth. Coioper. 

Here ivory seems intended to bring out the contrast between 

the yellowish whiteness of the dog's teeth and the perfect 

whiteness of the snow. 

And the thunder 
Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage. 

Milton. 

Here the epithet red, connected in our minds partly with 

blood, partly with light obscured by fog, heightens the turbid 

and horrific effect. 

The swan, with arched neck, 
Between her tvhite wings mantling proudly, rows 
Her state with oary feet. Mil fan. 

Of the same kind are " the tawny lion," 1 "his brinded mane," 1 
"the swift stag," 1 " his branching head." 1 Such epithets 
would not be allowed in ordinary prose unless it wore 
necessary to call attention to the tawny colour of the lion, 

1 Milton, P. L. vii. 



THE DICTION OF POETRY. 59 

or to the horns of the stag, as, for example, " the tawny lion 
was almost invisible as he couched on the dry and leafless 
sand, while the branching head of the stag stood out in clear 
relief against the sky." Here the epithets are really not 
epithets, but essential parts of the subject. We are speaking, 
not of the lion or the stag, but of the " tawny-colour-of-the- 
lion," and the "branching-horns-of-the-stag." These latter 
may be called essential epithets, as distinguished from the 
former, which may be called ornamental. " Yellow " in 
"yellow harvest" is often ornamental, at least in English 
poetry, where " harvest " only applies to corn ; but in 

Twin'd with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield, 
Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field. 

Pope, Essay on Man, iv. 11. 

" iron" is essential, for without this epithet the meaning of 
" harvests of iron-clad warriors mown down in the battle- 
field " would not be conveyed. 

Of course, where the poet is describing anything (as 
Milton is describing, in the passages just quoted, the first 
creation of the swan), epithets that would otherwise be 
ornamental become descriptive, and almost essential. In the 
poetry of Homer, epithets are often used almost like names, 
without any special reference to the thing described. Thus, 
" swift-footed " is an epithet applied to Achilles, not merely 
when running, but when speaking. This, though not un- 
common in our ballad-poetry, is rare in our best poets, 
except where the old simplicity of the ballad style is inten- 
tionally imitated : 

And answer made the bold 1 Sir Bedivere, 

" Sir King, I closed mine eyelids lest the gems 

Should blind my purpose." — Tennyson, Morte d' Arthur. 

1 This epithet is several times repeated. 



60 THE DICTION OF POETRY. 

42 c. Essential Epithets.— The following arc good 
examples of essential epithets, some of which are necessary 
for the picturesque effect, and others are necessary for the 
meaning. The former belong properly to the subject we 
are now considering, namely, the picturesqueness of poetry, 
and the latter come more fitly under the next head, the 
terseness of poetry ; but very often epithets occur which 
are almost necessary for the sense as well as for the pictu- 
resqueness, and these fall under both heads. Thus, in 

What shook the stage and made the people stare ? 
Cato's long wig, flowered gown, and lacquered chair, 

Pope. 

"long wig" really means " the length of Cato's wig," and 
" long " is essential for the sense. So in 

Exact Racine and Corneille's noble fire 
Showed us that France had sometliing to admire, 

Pope. 

"exact Racine" is merely a terse poetical equivalent for 
" Racine's exactness." These two examples, therefore, are 
rather examples of poetic terseness than of picturesqueness. 
But in the following the epithet " green" seems to approxi- 
mate more closely to a picturesque epithet : 

A breath of unadulterate air, 
The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer ! 

Coivper. 

And in the following description of a winter sunrise, the 
epithets are not merely ornamental. The first epithet 
prepares the way for the second, and both these and the 
third arc essential. On the whole, however, they are rather 



THE DICTION OF POETRY. 61 

essential for the picturesqueness than for the bare convey- 
ing of the meaning : 

His slanting ray- 
Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale, 
And tinging all with his own rosy hue, 
From every herb and every spiry blade 
Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field. 

Coicper. 

Here the epithet " slanting" indicates that the sun is as yet 

low in the horizon, and explains why his ray is " ineffectual," 

and why the hue with which he tinges the landscape is rosy. 

The sun being low, makes a distinct shadow of every herb, 

and even of some of the blades of grass, but only of those 

which shoot straight and spire-like up from the snow. 

In the following examples the epithet prepares the way for 

what follows : 

The horse 
That skims the spacious meadow at full speed. 

Cowper. 

Innocence, it seems, 
From courts dismissed, found shelter in the groves. 
The footsteps of simplicity impressed 
Upon the yielding herbage (so they say) 
Then were not all effaced. 

Coicper. 

43. Poetry is averse to lengthiness, and eupho- 
nious. — This aversion to lengthiness manifests itself in two 
ways : (a) in avoiding the use of conjunctions and relative 
pronouns, and in substituting for phrases epithets which 
may be called phrase epithets ; e.g., " animated canvas " for 
" canvas which received life from the artist's pencil;' 1 (b) in 
using brief words in place of long, draggling, and common- 
place words ; e.g., "gives he not ?" for " does he not give ? " 



62 THE DICTION OF POETRY. 

(c) in using euphonious words for words that are not eupho- 
nious, e.g., Erin for Ireland. 

43 a. Poetry is averse to Relatives and Conjunc- 
tions. — Instead of saying, " See that your arms are kept 
well polished and primed," or " after being polished are 
carefully primed," Cowper writes — 

See that jour polished arms be primed with care. 

He might have written, with almost equal brevity, 
" polished and primed," but the excessive use of conjunc- 
tions is avoided in poetry. Thus, and is omitted in 

Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd, 
Hamlet. 

which has perhaps been imitated by Milton in 

Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved. 

Paradise Lost. 

The following is most remarkable and unusual : 

So those two brothers with their murdered man 
Rode past fair Florence • 

Keats. 

where murdered stands for " whom they intended to murder," 
" murdered in anticipation." 

We may give the name of a phrase- epithet to words thus 
used. There is a great variety in the uses to which a phrase- 
epithet can be turned, and in the conjunctions for which it 
can serve as a substitute. Thus — 

(Though) 

Even copious Dryden wanted, or forgot, 
The last and greatest art, the art to blot ; 

Pope. 



THE DICTION OF POETRY. 63 

i.e., " Though he was copious, 1 and had not the excuse of 
barrenness." 

(Though) 

Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcerned 
The cheerful haunts of men ; 

Cowper. 

i.e., "unconcerned at leaving the haunts of men, cheerful 
though they are." 

(Because) 

But Otway failed to polish or refine, 

And fluent Shakspeare scarce effaced a line; 

Pope. 

i.e., " because of his fluency." 

(Relative) 

(He), his three years of heroship expired, 
Returns indignant to the slighted plough ; 

Cowper. 

i.e., " to the plough which he had slighted." 

The following is a good instance of the way in which Pope 
expresses a long clause by means of an epithet, and at the 
same time prepares the way for what is to come ; 

(Relative) 

Lely on animated canvas stole 

The sleepy eye which spoke the melting soul ; 

Pope. 

i.e., the canvas which assumed life under his pencil. 

So Milton : 

From his slack hand the garland wreathed for Eve 
Down dropp'd, and all the faded roses shed ; 

Milton. 

L " Copious" says Warburton in his note, "aggravated the fault. For 
when a writer has great stores, he is inexcusable not to discharge the easy 
task of choosing from the best." 



64 THE DICTION OF POETRY. 

i.e., "his hand slackened, and" or " from his hand which 

slackened" 

(Relative) 

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, 
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main ; 

Pope. 

i.e., " which had not time to bend beneath her." 

(When) 

Proud vice to brand, or injur' d worth to adorn ; 

Pope. 

.e., " vice, when it is proud, worth when injured." 

(Though, when) 

But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace, 
Insults fallen worth or beauty in distress; 

Pope. 

i.e., " a neighbour, though harmless — worth when fallen." 

A great deal of the effect of Pope's couplets depends upon 
the epithet by which he thus tersely describes some detail : 

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, 
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. 

Here sounding stands for " which resounds to the surges,'' 
and is at once a natural consequence of " loud," and pre- 
paratory for "the hoarse, rough verse." If, instead of 
sounding, we substitute sandy, or even rocky, we destroy the 
beauty of the couplet. 

Similarly, write walking or trotting for hounding, and you 
convert into a parody the following : 

And great Nassau to Kneller's hand decreed 
To fix him graceful on the bounding steed ; 

Pope. 

where bounding at once enhances the "grace " of the rider 

and the skill of the artist. 



THE DICTION OF POETRY. 65 

The unusual epithets applied to youth and age have a very 
striking and condensed meaning in the description of the 
imperious and dreaded Atossa : 

From loveless youth to unrespected age 
No passion gratified except her rage ; 

Pope. 

i.e., " from a youth that was destitute of the peculiar virtue 
of youth, love, to an old age that was destitute of the peculiar 
privilege of old age, respect." By these two epithets Pope 
implies that " even Atossa's youth was loveless, even her old 
age unrespected." 

In this, and in many other instances, the use of epithets is 
suggested not only by the desire of picturesqueness, but also 
by the dislike of lengthiness. 

Poetic Compounds. — Hence poetry assumes a certain 
license of inventing terse and euphonious compounds not 
allowed in prose. 

Like Teneriffe or Atlas, unremoved. 

Milton. 

The ahv ay s-icind-ob eying deep. 

Shahspeare. 

With rocks unscaleable, and roaring waters. 

lb. 

The ne'er -yet -beat en horse of Parthia. 

lb. 

436. Poetry is averse to lengthy and com- 
monplace Words. — This is a necessary consequence of 
the /'passionate" nature of poetry. By this it is not 
meant that poetry is averse to long words, where long 
words are emphatic and sonorously appropriate. Thus — 

5 



66 THE DICTION OF POETRY. 

The multitudinous sea incarnadine. 

Shakspeare. 

No longer I follow a sound, 
No longer a dream I pursue ; 
O happiness not to be found, 
Unattainable treasure, Adieu ! 

Coivper. 

But lengthiness, i.e., length without force, or even length for 

the mere purpose of clearness, is avoided by poetry. As 

little as possible is wasted on the mere framework of the 

thought, the mechanism of grammatical expression, in order 

to throw all the force on the thought itself. Hence 

in adverbs, conjunctions, and other unemphatic words, there 

is a tendency to use the shorter form where more forms than 

one exist, even though the shorter form may be less clear 

than the longer. Thus " unquestionably," though used by 

Wordsworth, may almost be called inadmissible in poetry : 

" questionless " or " doubtless " would be preferred. So we 

find " scarce "for " scarcely," " altera " for " alternately," 

"vale" for "valley," "list" for "listen," "marge" for 

" margin," (often used by Tennyson for " horizon,") "drear" 

for " dreary." Some of these forms are archaic also, as 

"ere" for "before," " doff'd " for " taken off," "pollute" 

for " polluted," "whist" for " become silent." Hence the 

constant use of the adjective for the adverb, as in — 

The sower stalks 
With measur'd step, and liberal throws the grain. 

Thomson's Seaso?is. 

For the same reason poetry dispenses with auxiliaries : — 
Gives not the hawthorn bush as sweet a shade \ 
Long- die ihy happy days before thy death! 

for " Does not the hawthorn bush givt ." and " May thy happy 
days die" 



THE DICTION OF POETRY. 67 

43c. Euphony is a consideration as well as brevity. 
Hence we not only find Erin for Ireland, and Edina for 
Edinburgh, where brevity is in favour of the substitution, 
but also Caledonia for Scotland. Often these euphonious 
names have archaic associations beside euphony in their 
favour, as in the case of Albion. The omission of the 
possessive inflections is to be thus explained : 

Betwixt Astrsea and the Scorpion sign. 

Milton. 

This is still more common in Shakspeare, where we have 
" the Cyprus wars," " Verona walls," " Philippi fields," 
proper names being regularly used as adjectives. 

Poetry often uses the simile where prose prefers metaphor. 
This is not an exception to the rule of poetic brevity. Poetry, 
aiming at pleasure, lingers over what gives pleasure as much 
as it hurries over what does not. But in proportion as 
poetry approximates to prose, metaphor is substituted for 
simile. Hence in dramatic poetry the simile is comparatively 
rare. 

44. Exaggerations of Poetic Characteristics. — The 

qualities of poetry enumerated above are sometimes found 
in exaggerated forms. The archaic becomes pedantic and 
affected; the picturesque, florid; brevity, obscurity; and 
euphony, sound without sense. Thus (1) when Chapman uses 
woodness for madness, telling us that the " compos'd rage " of 
poetry is by many persons " held the simplest woodness" 
he uses a word which had become quite antique, and which 
being only fit for a joke, 1 was unfit for serious poetry. 

1 See Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 1. 192; " Wood within this 
wood," wood or mode being an archaic word for "mad." 



68 THE DICTION OF POETRY. 

Again (2) the accumulation of epithets (one or two of 
which might be picturesque) joined with an ill-chosen metre 
produces an almost comical effect in — 

Dreadful gleams, 

Dismal screams, 

Fires that glow, 

Scenes of woe, 

Sullen moans, 

Hollow groans, 

And cries of tortured ghosts. 

Pope's Ode on St. Cecilia* s Day. 

(3) Obscurity is a common result of the poetic attempt at 
brevity. 

Thus, 

Vouchsafe (to receive) good morrow irom a feeble tongue. 

Julius Caesar, ii. 1. 313. 

Instances might be multiplied from modern authors. 

(4) The sacrifice of sense to sound is not uncommon 
where rhyme is used, or where excessive alliteration is 
aimed at. Many amusing parodies of this fault have been 
written : 

'Tis sweet to roam when morning's light 

Resounds across the deep, 
And the crystal song of the woodbine bright 

Hushes the rocks to sleep ; 
And the blood-red moon in the blaze of noon 

Is bathed in a crumbling dew, 
And the wolf rings out with a glittering shout, 

To-whit, to-whit, to-whoo ! 

Anonymous. 

Where is Cupid's crimson motion? 

Billowy ecstasy of woe, 
Bear me straight, meandering ocran, 

Where the stagnant torrents flow. 

Rejected Addr 



THE DICTION OF POETEY. 69 

45. Different styles of Poetry. — Hitherto we have 
been describing the characteristics of the diction of poetry 
in general. We now come to the consideration of the 
different styles in poetry. The poetry of Milton's " Paradise 
Lost," or of Gray's "Bard," will naturally adopt a higher 
style than would be fit for Waller's " Rose " or Herrick's 
"Daffodils." Again, the graceful style that might be suitable 
for a love-song or a pastoral poem would be inappropriate 
in the drama, where force and lifelike vigour are primary 
requisites. Lastly, in quiet poems of simple narrative, where 
there are no speakers or scenery to set off the words, the 
forcible style of the drama might interfere with the unity of 
the poem, by attracting to the words the interest that should 
be concentrated on the narrative ; and here a simple style 
may be desirable. Thus poetic style may be roughly divided 
into (1) the elevated, (2) the graceful, (3) the forcible, (4) 
the simple. 

One instance of each will be given, illustrating the style, 
not the subject. 

(1) Elevated, avoiding everything that is colloquial and 
suggestive of littleness. 

The description of a wound might easily be made forcible, 
and the description of the healing might easily become col- 
loquial and commonplace ; but both are elevated in 

Then Satan first knew pain, 
And writhed him to and fro convolved ; so sore 
The griding sword with discontinuous wound 
Pass'd through him : but the ethereal substance closed, 
Not long divisible ; and from the gash 
A stream of nectareous humour flowed 
Sanguine, such as celestial spirits may bleed, 
And all his armour stain'd, ere while so bright. 

P. L. vi. 



70 THE DICTION OF POETRY. 

(2) Graceful^ avoiding nothing that is familiar, so 
long as it is not unpleasing. The following might easily 
become unpleasingly forcible : 

(a) A rogue in grain 
Veneered with sanctimonious theory. 

Tennyson, The Princess, 

(b) Eight daughters of the plough, stronger than men, 
Huge women blowsed with health, and wind, and rain, 
And labour; lb. 

where bloicsy would have been ungraceful. 

(3) Forcible, avoiding nothing but what is tame. 

This painted child of dirt, that stinks and sings. 

Pope, 

(4) The Simple is very commonly used in Wordsworth 

and Tennyson to express intense pathos : 

They two 
Were brother shepherds on their native hills. 
They were the last of all their race : and now, 
When Leonard had approached his home, his heart 
Failed in him ; and, not venturing to inquire 
Tidings of one so long and dearly loved, 
He to the solitary churchyard turned ; 
That, as he knew in what particular spot 
His family were laid, he there might learn 
If still his brother lived, or to the rile 
Another grave was added. — He had found 
Another grave, — near which a full half-hour 
He had remained ; but, as he gazed, there grew 
Such a confusion in his memory 
That he began to doubt ; and even to hope 
That he had seen this heap of turf before, — 
That it was not another grave, but one 
He had forgotten. 

Wordsicorth, The Brothers. 

46- The Elevated Style of Poetry is well exemplified 
by Milton's Paradise Lost. It differs from the graceful style 



THE DICTION OF POETRY. 71 

(1) in that it admits painful and even disgusting images, and 
t differs from the forcible (2) in that it rejects many common 
expressions which, though they represent the meaning, re- 
present it in a familiar manner. 

(1) The following description could find no place in grace- 
ful poetry : — 

All maladies 
Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms 
Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds, 
Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs, 
Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs, 
Demoniac phrensy, moping melancholy 
And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy, 
Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence, 
Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums. 

Milton, P. L. xi. 

Note here that any common name for a disease, however 
fatal, would, if inserted, interfere with the effect of elevation. 
" Heart-disease," " softening of the brain," " smallpox," are 
serious enough, but the names would be too familiar for 
here, even if those names were known to Milton. 

(2) Again, in the Allegro, Milton is not afraid to say — 

She was pinched and pull'd, she said ; 
And he by friar's lantern led. 

But in the Paradise Lost the familiar name " friar's lantern " 
is avoided, and a periphrasis is substituted : 

As when a wandering fire, 
Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night 
Condenses, and the cold environs round, 
Kindled through agitation to a flame, 
Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends, 
Hovering and blazing with delusive light, 
Misleads the amazed night-wanderer from his wav. 



72 THE DICTION OF POETRY. 

The following are remarkable exceptions to the elevated 
style generally preserved in the " Paradise Lost " : 

(a) Though with them better pleased 
Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume 

That drove him, though enamour 'd, from the spouse 
Of Tobit's son, and with a vengeance sent 
From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound. 

(b) Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash 

Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors 
Cross -barr'd and bolted fast fear no assault, 
In at the window climbs or o'er the tiles. 

47. Dangers of Elevated Poetry: Grotesqueness — 

The admission of familiar and trivial words, or images, into 
elevated poetry produces an effect that may be called gro- 
tesque. 

The following is a good instance : 

Hast thou not heard 
That haughty Spain's pope-consecrated fleet 
Advances to our shores, and England's fate 
Like a clipp'd guinea trembles in the scale ? 

The Critic. 

48. Dangers of Elevated Poetry: Bombast.— An 

excess in the use of elevated language is a fault, and may be 
called bombast. 

(a) Sometimes it is the language that is bombastic. The 
thought is reasonable enough, but expressed in absurdly 
elevated language, as : 

You know, my friend, scarce two revolving suns 
And three revolving moons have closed their course 
Since haughty Philip in despite of peace, 

With hostile hand hath struck at England's trade. 

The Critic. 



THE DICTION OF POETRY. 73 

where " two years or little more " would have been the 
natural expression. 

(b) Sometimes the thought itself is unnaturally excessive, 
and expressed in corresponding language, as when a lover 
calls the miniature of his mistress 

The moon's extinguisher, the noon-day's night. 

Quoted in the Key to The Rehearsal. 

A hemisphere of evil planets reign ! 

The Critic. 

And the following, unless justified by extreme passion, 
would approach bombast : 

All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes, 

That I being governed by the wat'ry moon 

May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world. 

Richard III. 

Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach 
Filip the stars, then let the mutinous winds " 
Strike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun. 

Coriolanus. 

94. Tameness and Bathos.— The deficiency of eleva- 
tion is tameness. Perhaps the following, which approaches to 
prose, may be an instance : 

Arms, through the vanity and brainle&s rage 
Of those that bear them in whatever cause, 
Seem most at variance with all moral good, 
And incompatible with serious thought. 

Cowper. 

Tameness, when found at the end of a piece of elevated 
poetry, often gives us a ludicrous sense of a sudden drop to 
a low from a high level. Thus 



74 THE DICTION OF POETRY. 

When I count o'er yon glittering lines 
Of crested warriors, where the proud steed's neigh, 
And valour-breathing trumpet's shrill appeal, 
Responsive vibrate on my listening ear, 

***** 

I cannot but surmise— forgive, my friend, 
If the conjecture's rash — I cannot but 
Surmise the state some danger apprehends. 

The Critic. 

This depression or sinking is often called bathos, and is of 
course possible in forcible as well as in elevated poetry: 

Grac'd as thou art with all the power of words, 
So known, so honour'd at the House of Lords ; 

Pope. 

which was thus parodied by Cibber : 

Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks, 
And he has chambers in the King's Bench walks. 

50. Misapplication of Elevated Style. — The elevated 
style has often been misapplied to subjects that do not require 
it. It is a dangerous style to handle. The genius of a Milton 
is required to prevent any long poem in the elevated style from 
becoming wearisome, and at times bombastic. By its nature, 
avoiding familiar words, merely because they are familiar, it 
is altogether unfit for simple narrative. For example, an Eng- 
lish translation of the story of the adventures of Ulysses would 
require almost always the graceful style, very seldom the 
elevated. But, during the eighteenth century, the distinction 
between the graceful style which rejects unpleasing and 
vulgar words, and the elevated style which rejects familiar and 
petty words, was forgotten. Serious poetry of all kinds, so 
argued the poets of the time, ought to reject such common 
terms as man, woman, cup, wine, bed, coat, and to adopt in their 



THE DICTION OF POETRY. 75 

stead, less ignoble terms, such as sivain, fair, goblet, purple 
tide, alcove, vest, etc. 

The Elizabethan dramatists had preferred to use the 
plainest and most familiar words, even to coarseness, in 
which they could express their meaning ; the poets of the 
eighteenth century, on the other hand, limited their choice 
to such words as were unfamiliar. Thus the range of their 
language was unnaturally narrowed. Shakspeare and Ben 
Jonson had at their command the poetic vocabulary in 
addition to the ordinary language of conversation ; Pope in 
his Odyssey uses only the strictly poetic vocabulary. In 
satire and lighter poetry, the forcible and the graceful styles 
still survived ; but the serious poetry of this age, hampered 
by these conventional restrictions, became stilted and un- 
natural in the extreme. The following examples of this con- 
ventional bombast are taken from Pope's " Odyssey." The 
original is, " The swine-herd tucked up his coat, and ran 
out of doors ; " Pope writes : 

His vest succinct then girding round his waia 
Forth rushed the swain in hospitable haste. 

Then the killing of two pigs for dinner is described thus : 

Of two (pigs) his cutlass launch' d the spurting blood. 



Then 



Silent and thoughtful while the board he ey'd, 
Emaeus pours on high the purple tide; 



where the original is " he filled and handed him a cup." 
Again, instead of "he went to his chamber to lie down," 
Pope has, — 

His bright alcove the obsequious youth ascends. 
51. The Graceful Style, though it does not, like the 



76 THE DICTION OF POETRY. 

elevated style, reject familiar words, rejects all words and 
images that are disgusting, or coarse, or in any way unpleas- 
ing. Thus in Tennyson's " Lord of Burleigh," such common 
words as handsome, domestic, are not out of place. But 
instead of landscape painter, in 

He is but a landscape painter, 
And a village maiden she, 

if we were to substitute " young pork-butcher '," " undertaker," 
" haberdasher," or perhaps even " land-surveyor," or " coun- 
try doctor," the effect of the poem would be injured, if not 
destroyed. The difference between the graceful and the 
forcible style may be seen by comparing the light and half- 
playful touch in, — 

And one 

Discussed his tutor, rough to common men, 

But honeying at the whisper of a lord, 

The Princess. 

with the straightforward attack in 

When servile chaplains cry that birth and place 
Endue a Peer with honour, truth, and grace, 

Look in that breast, most dirty D ! be fair, 

Say can you find out ope such lodger there ? 

Pope. 

Note how in the following passage, a colloquial and some- 
what ungraceful name for a flower is not introduced without 
some kind of preparation. It is the description of the death 
of Ophelia, — 

There with fantastic garlands did she come 

Of corn flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples 

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, 

But our cold maids do dead men's Jin gas call them. 

Hamlet, iv. 7. 17*2. 

Here the quaintness of the flowers is essential to describe 



THE DICTION OF POETRY. 77 

the " fantastic " nature of the garland : but if " dead men's 
fingers " had headed the list of flowers, without any prepara- 
tion, the effect would have been seriously injured. Contrast 
the above with the intentionally comical effect of the abrupt 
introduction of the names of flowers with ungraceful epithets 

in the following : 

Darkness is fled, 
Now flowers unfold their beauties to the sun, 
And blushing kiss the beam he sends to wake them ; 
The striped carnation and the guarded rose, 
The vulgar wall-flower, neat gilly-flower, 
The polyanthus mean, the dapper daisy, 
Sweet-william and sweet marjoram and all 
The tribe of single and of double pinks. 

The Critic. 

The poems of Tennyson present, perhaps, the most fault- 
less specimens of the graceful style, — a style that can describe 
anything, however familiar, so long as it does not suggest 
anything ungraceful. Thus, in the " Miller's Daughter," 
the poet does not avoid describing the miller, and 

His double chin, his portly size, 

or the quiet conversation after dinner, 

Across the walnut and the wine, 

and yet throughout the poem there is not the slightest jar to 
break the sense of continuous gracefulness. That this is not 
effected without great care, may be seen from comparing the 
first edition of the poem with later editions. Originally it 
was a water-rat whose splash in the water was followed by 
the appearance of the " Miller's Daughter," reflected in the 
stream, — 

A water-rat from off the bank 
Plunged in the stream. 



78 THE DICTION OF POETRY. 

It seems to have been felt that this image a little marred 
the general level of quiet grace and beauty in the poem, and 
it was therefore altered to 

Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood 

I watch'd. the little circles die ; 
They passed into the level flood, 

And there a vision caught my eye. 

Two other alterations of the same poem illustrate the 
delicacy with which language can so be handled as to pre- 
serve by an art imperceptible to a careless reader, the level 
of gracefulness. The epithet u gummy," applied to " ches- 
nuts," has been erased in the eighth stanza, and the some- 
what gloomy description of the upper pool — 

How dear to me in youth, my love, 

Was everything about the mill j 
The black and silent pool above, 

The pool beneath that ne'er stood still. 

was altered into the more cheerful and detailed description 
that follows : 

I loved the brimming wave that swam 

Thro' quiet meadows round the mill, 
The sleepy pool above the dam, 

The pool beneath it never still. 

52. Dangers of the Graceful Style: Pedantry, Con- 
ventionalism,— The excess of the graceful stylo, leads to 
the fault of rejecting, not merely words that are ungrace- 
ful, but also words that are familiar. It thus trespasses upon 
the elevated. Instances of this fault have been given above, 
and many other instances might be gathered from Thomson's 
<< Seasons." 



THE DICTION OF POETKY. 79 

(a) His sportive lambs 
This way and that convolv'd l in friskful glee 
Their frolics play. 

(b) The rustic youth, brown with meridian toil. 

(c) The trout is banished by the sordid (muddy) stream. 

(d) Meanwhile incumbent o'er the shining share 
The master leans. 

This proneness to use an unfamiliar and Latin word instead 
of a familiar English one, may be called 'pedantry ; but in 
other cases, the aversion to familiar words such as man and 
woman, and the preference of unfamiliar words such as su'flm, 
and fair, would be called conventionalism. 

Even Cowper and "Wordsworth sometimes err in this 
direction. Convey is more unfamiliar than bring ; but is not 
appropriate to express the action of handing a rose to a 
friend, — 

The rose had been wash'd, just wash'd in a shower, 
Which Mary to Anna convey' d ; 

Coicper. 

and " prominent feature" is not a graceful periphrasis for 

nose in 

Mark him of shoulders curved, of stature tall, 
Black hair and vivid eye and meagre cheek, 
His prominent feature like an eagle's beak. 

Wordsworth. 

53. The Deficiency of Gracefulness is often more 
easily felt than pointed out. It is seldom that a palpably 
ungraceful word is admitted, except in a parody, as — 



1 The word is more suitably used to describe the writhing of Satan 
wounded : 

Then Satan first knew pain, 

And writhed him to and fro convolved. 

Paradise Lost. 



80 THE DICTION OF POETRY. 

For dear is the emerald isle of the ocean 
Whose daughters are fair as the foam of the wave. 

Whose sons, unaccustomed to rebel commotion 
Tho' joyous, are sober, tho' peaceful, are brave. 

The shamrock their olive, sworn foe to a quarrel 
Protects from the thunder and lightning of rows , 

The sprig of shillelagh is nothing but laurel, 
Which flourishes rapidlv over their brows. 

It ejected Addresses. 

Lead us to some sunny isle, 

Yonder o'er the western deep, 
Where the skies for ever smile, 

And the blacks for ever weep. 

Quoted from Thackeray. 

More often the deficiency appears in a want of that ex- 
quisiteness in the choice of words which is a characteristic of 
the highest kind of graceful poetry. By such a want the 
general result is injured ; but no particular word or line can 
be made responsible for the fault. 

Perhaps the following passage, without being extremely 
faulty, is not free from this fault : 

But now and then with pressure of his thumb 
To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube 
That fumes beneath his nose. 

Coivper. 

54. The Forcible Style is well exemplified by the Eliza- 
bethan dramatists. No words are rejected by them that 
express the meaning with clearness and force, — 

(a) Covering discretion with a coat of folly, 

As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots 
That shall first spring and be most delicate. 

Henry V. 



THE DICTION OF POETRY. 81 

(b) Rush on his host, as doth the melted snow 
Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat 
The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon. 

Henry V. 

(c) Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar' d host, 
And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps : 
The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks 

With torch-staves in their hand : and their poor jades 
Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips, 
The gum down-roping from their pale dead eyes, 
And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit 
Lies foul with chewed grass, still and motionless. 

lb. 

In this last passage, ungraceful and offensive words are 
studiously selected as appropriate for the boaster who exults 
in the prospect of a victory over a dejected enemy. Many 
passages of Pope furnish examples of this style : 

Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, 
This painted child of dirt that stinks and sings : 
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, 
Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys : 
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight 
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. 

55. Dangers of the Forcible Style: Coarseness.— 

This passage from Pope points out the danger of coarseness 
to which the forcible style is peculiarly liable. The first two 
lines are so unpleasant, that they can scarcely be tolerated 
even in satire. Many passages in which force has degene- 
rated into coarseness, might also be quoted from Shakspeare's 

plays : 

And then the hearts 
Of all his people shall revolt from him, 
And kiss the lips of unacquainted change, 
And pick strong matter of revolt and icrath 
Out of the bloody finger 's ends of John. 

King John. 

6 



82 THE DICTION OF POETRY. 

But it is very difficult to say how far the coarseness is in- 
tentional, meant to express the natural disposition, or the 
intense passion of the speaker, and not at all characteristic 
of the dramatist. Thus, it would be wrong to criticize 
the language when the ecstasy of a mother's grief makes 
Constance cry, — 

Death ! death ! amiable lovely death, 

Thou odoriferous stench ! sound rottenness ! 

Arise forth from the couch of lasting night, 

Thou hate and terror to prosperity, 

And I will kiss thy detestable bones, 

And put my eye-balls in thy vaulty brows, 

And ring these fingers with thy household worms, 

And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust, 

And be a carrion monster like thyself ; 

Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smilest, 

And buss thee as thy wife. 

K. John, iii. 4. 25—35. 

And perhaps a similar explanation may justify the follow- 
ing address of the Queen to Kichard II. : 

Thou mass of honour, thou King Richard's tomb, 
And not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn, 
Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodged in thee, 
"When triumph is become an alehouse guest ! 

Yet the following passage, justifiable itself, shows the possi- 
bility of erring in the direction of coarseness : 

Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death, 
Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth, 
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open, 
And, in defpite, I'll cram thee with more food, 

here, here will I remain 

With worms that are thy chambermaids. 

Borneo and Juliet. 



THE DICTION OF POETRY. 83 

And again in the following : 

First the fair reverence of your highness curbs me 
From giving reins and spurs to my free speech : 
Which else would post, until it had returned 
These terms of treason doubled down his throat. 

Richard II. 

With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat. 

lb. 

Ere my tongue 
Shall wound my honour with such feeble using. 
Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear 
The slavish motive of recanting fear, 
And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace, 
Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face. 

lb. 

the expressions are most appropriate for two furious com- 
batants, one or both conscious of guilt ; but in themselves 
they are exaggerated as well as unpleasing, and exceed the 
usual limit of the forcible style. 

The forcible and graceful style are combined in the songs 
of the Elizabethan dramatists, and the Elizabethan poetry 
generally. Shakspeare's Sonnets, although always forcible, 
and often using the most familiar words and images, are, for 
the most part, graceful also : 

That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, 
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair, 
The ornament of beauty is suspect, 
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air. 

Sonnet 70. 

The occasional violence and coarseness of the forcible style 
led to a reaction in favour of urbanity. This finally degene- 
rated into the conventional style common in the eighteenth 
century, and described above. But the gulf between the 



84 THE DICTION OF POETRY. 

forcible and conventional is bridged by Dryden, who, in a 

most happy manner combines grace and force : 

When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat : 
Yet fool'd with hope men favour the deceit, 
Trust on, and hope to-morrow will repay : 
To-morrow's falser than the former day, 
Lies worse ; and when it says we shall be blest 
With some new joys, cuts off what we possessed. 
Strange cozenage ! none would live past days again, 
Yet all hope pleasure from what yet remain, 
And from the dregs of life hope to receive 
What the first sprightly runnings could not give. 
I'm tired of waiting for this chymic gold 
That fools us young, and beggars us when old. 

Dryden. 

56. The Want of Force, like the want of grace, is not 
a fault that can often be localized in any particular words or 
expressions. Tameness or weakness arises from a general 
inability to use language rightly, and often from the ignorance 
of the exact meanings and distinctions of words, and hence 
a preference for the vaguest words, as most likely to cover 
ignorance. Sententious tameness is exemplified by the fol- 
lowing parody of Crabbe : — 

John Richard William Alexander Dwyer 
Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire ; 
But when John Dwyer listed in the Blues, 
Emanuel Jennings polish'd Stubbs's shoes. 
Emanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy 
Up as a corn-cutter — a safe employ, etc. 

Rejected Addn 

In the poetry of Crabbe himself the following lines are 

found — 

Something had happen'd wrong about a bill 
Which was not drawn witli true mercantile skill; 
So, to amend it, I was told to go 
And seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co. 



THE DICTION OF POETRY. 85 

57. The Simple Style is common in ballads. It is 
used in narrative, where the story is the principal considera- 
tion, and the words require to be especially clear and simple. 
Most of the old ballads are speeches, with descriptive pas- 
sages interspersed. But the utterances of the speakers are 
generally expressed in a less forcible style than that used 
by the Elizabethan dramatists. The short and simple metre 
would in itself be an obstacle in the way of using many 
words common in Shakspeare. The ballad was intended to 
be sung, readily understood, and easily remembered. Each 
of these considerations tended to make simplicity a necessity. 
Hence the epithets are often of the simplest nature, and 
so often attached to their several nouns as almost to form 
part of a compound noun. Thus " red gold," " bright 
sword," " lady fair," " the bold Buccleuch," are almost as 
inseparable as " the green-wood," 6t my merry-men." Words- 
worth and Tennyson have written poems which, though not 
ballads, nor in the ballad-metre, are so studiously simple 
that they may fairly be ranked under this division. Dora is 
an example : 

And Dora took the child, and went her way 
Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound 
That was unsown, where many poppies grew. 

58, Danger of the Simple Style : Childishness. — An 

affected excess of simplicity, narrating details that are not 
worth narrating, has been parodied in the following imitation 
of Wordsworth : 

Well, after many a sad reproach 
They got into a hackney coach 
And trotted down the street. 



86 THE DICTION OF PROSE. 

I saw them go ; one horse was blind, 
The tails of both hung down behind, 
Their shoes were on their feet. 

Rejected Addresses. 

The deficiency of simplicity is pedantry or conventionalism, 
and has been sufficiently exemplified above. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE DICTION OF PROSE. 



59, The Diction of Prose, — It is very natural that 
those who are beginning to write prose on subjects with 
which they are not familiar, and about which they have not 
thought and spoken much, should fall into the elevated or 
graceful diction of poetry. They naturally choose the 
diction that seems to them least likely to be vulgar and 
most remote from common life, and, as they are generally 
better acquainted with the best poetry than with the best 
prose of the language, they have recourse to the former. But 
poetic diction without metre is, even in impassioned prose, 
very likely to be distasteful, and in ordinary prose, written 
for the purpose of giving information, it is offensive. AYe 
have not the leisure, in ordinary prose, to attend to the pictu- 
resqueness and euphony of words or the rhythm of sentences ; 
and the attempt to arrest our attention and divert it to such 
superfluities, offends instead of pleasing. Thus, Albion would 
be in place in poetry, but out of place in prose. The 
Emerald Isle is fitly and effectively used in Moore's songs, 
but when an author writes "Parliament, during this session, 
was mainly occupied with the Emerald Isle" the sudden 



THE DICTION OF PROSE. 87 

transition from the business-like debates of a deliberative 
assembly to a fairy-like scene of verdant beauty, such as is 
conjured up by this picturesque title, is not only not pleasing, 
it is displeasing. 

Beginners must therefore bear in mind that when they 
have to write about a subject of somewhat elevated character, 
as, for instance, about the passage of the Kubicon by Julius 
Caesar, it is not necessary or in good taste at once to begin 
to use steed or charger, instead of being content that the great 
usurper should merely " spur his horse" across the river. The 
short and archaic forms, as well as the peculiar words of 
poetry, are to be avoided. Ere must not be written for 
before, nor scarce for scarcely, nor vale for valley, and the like. 

Are we then in no circumstances to use poetic diction in 
prose ? Could no context whatever justify the use, for 
instance, of The Emerald Isle or of Albion ? Yes, we may 
use the picturesque diction where the picturesqueness is a 
part of the information which we desire to give. Thus — 
" Accustomed to the arid and barren deserts of Arabia, the 
eye of the returning soldier rested with pleasure upon the 
rich bright vegetation of the Emerald Isle," or, " Driven 
backward by a violent wind, the invaders had the pain of 
seeing the white cliffs of Albion lessen in the distance, 
unreached and unconquered." 

But scarcely any circumstances would justify, in a 
beginner, the use of poetic words such as ivoe, 1 thrall, ire, 
vale, ere, scarce, etc. For these have other prose equivalents; 
they are connected by usage and association with metre, and 
are employed, not for picturesqueness, but for euphony. 

1 Woe is used in a well-known passage of Burke, influenced by Biblical 
diction : " Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, 
no heart conceived." 



88 THE DICTION OF PROSE. 

The same rule will apply to the use of epithets in prose. 
They must not be used as in the ballad style without any 
purpose of giving information, and merely for picturesque- 
ness. You could not write in prose " He was sitting in 
the green wood," or " He drew his bright sword," unless 
the context made the epithets necessary, as in " Laugh- 
ing at the peasant's extemporized weapon, the soldier drew 
his own bright sword," where the epithet would indicate the 
habitual use of the sword and the soldier's readiness for 
fight, in contrast to the peasant's unreadiness. 

60, Impassioned Prose. — There is a beautiful prose 
(dangerous to imitate) which resembles poetry in having a 
perceptible rhythm, and now and then borrows poetic brevity 
and forms poetic compounds, e.g., daisied, sun-filled, while 
yet it never trespasses on the poetic vocabulary : 

" The boat reappeared, but brother and sister had gone down 
in an embrace never to be parted ; living through again, in one 
supreme moment, the days when they had clasped their little 
hands in love, and roamed the daisied fields together. }> — George Eliot. 

In the following the rhythm is perceptible and singularly 
fascinating, though the law of rhythm cannot be detected : 

" I at least hardly ever look at a bent old man or a wizened old 
woman, but I see also with my mind's eye that Past of which 
they are the shrunken remnant ; and the unfinished romance of 
rosy cheeks and bright eyes seems sometimes of feeble interest 
and significance, compared with that drama of hope and love 
which has long ago reached its catastrophe, and left the poor 
soul like a dim and dusty stage, with all its sweet garden-scenes 
and fair perspectives, overturned and thrust out of Bight." — lb. 

In the following, the omission of the conjunctions in the 
third and fourth lines suggests the brevity of poetry, and in 



THE DICTION OF PROSE. 89 

the middle of the passage there are rhythmical short sentences, 
with three or four accents each, which approach to verses : 

" Blessed influence of one true loving human soul on another ! 
Not calculable by algebra, not deducible by logic, but mysteri- 
ous, effectual, mighty, as the hidden process by which the 
tiny seed is quickened and bursts forth into tall stem and 
broad leaf and groiving tasselled floiver. Ideas are often poor 
ghosts, our sun-filled eyes cannot discern them ; they pass 
athwart us in thin vapour, and cannot make themselves felt. 
But sometimes they are made flesh : they breathe upon us with 
warm breath, they touch us with soft responsive hands, they 
look at us with sad sincere eyes, and speak to us in appealing 
tones, — they are clothed in a living soul with all its conflicts, its 
faith, and its love. Then their presence is a power." — George 
Eliot. 

The omission of the article may be noticed also in the 
following : 

" The temptations of beauty are much dwelt upon, but I fancy 
they only bear the same relation to those of ugliness, as the 
temptation to excess at a feast, where the delights are varied 
for eye and ear as well as palate, bears to the temptations that 
assail the desperation of hunger." — lb. 

In prose like this, the use of simile for metaphor is allow- 
able, and is introduced with exquisite effect, together with a 
certain transposition of the words for emphasis, in — 

"But Catarina moved through all this joy and beauty like a 
poor wounded leveret, painfully dragging its little body through 
the sweet clover tufts — for it, sweet in vain." — lb. 

Or again, an emphatic position may be given to some 
detail. in a description which would be quite unwarranted 
in ordinary prose, but which adds greatly to the picturesque- 
ness, besides superadding a subtle rhythmical effect : 



90 THE DICTION OF PROSE. 

"But good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is 
of very expensive production, requiring nothing less than a wide 
and arduous national life, condensed in unfragrant, deafening 
factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, 
hammering, weaving under more or less oppression of carbonic 
acid — or else spread over sheep-walks and scattered in lonely 
houses and huts in the clayey or chalky corn lands, where the 
rainy days look dreary." — George Eliot. 

The rhythm of the last part of the passage just quoted 
approaches too near to the form of lyrical poetry to be al- 
lowable in a speech, or historical treatise. But it will be 
observed that in all the above passages, as well as in those 
that follow, the vocabulary of prose is strictly observed. 
Different rhythms are suitable for different subjects, and 
seem natural to different authors ; but, even in the highest 
flight of fancy, and under the influence of the strongest pas- 
sion, the best prose-writers l use the diction of prose, and not 
that of poetry. Exceptions are rare, even in archaic prose : 

" Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation 
rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her 
invincible locks : methinks I see her as an eagle muing 2 her mighty 
youth, and kindling her undazzVd eyes at the full midday 
beam, purging and unsealing her long abused sight at the 
fountain itself of heav'nly radiance, while the whole noise of 
timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the 
twilight, flutter about, amaz'd at what she means, and in their 
envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms." 
— Milton, u Areopagitica." 

It might be expected that in the earlier prose-writers of 
the language the distinction between prose and poetic diction 

1 Exceptions will be noted hereafter. 

2 Milton's spelling of the word. 

3 Probably not recognized then as poetic. 



THE DICTION OF PEOSE. 91 

should not be established. Methinks was common in the 
prose of Milton's time, and muing was a common term in 
falconry. Note the repetition " Methinks I see," which is 
common in impassioned prose, and is exemplified in the 
following passage : 

" It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the 
Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles : and 
surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to 
touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the 
horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just 
began to move in, — glittering like the morning-star, full of life, 
and splendour, and joy. Oh, what a revolution ! and what a 
heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that eleva- 
tion and that fall ! Little did I dream when she added titles 
of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant love, that she 
should (sic) ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against 
disgrace concealed in that bosom ; little did I dream that I should 
have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of 
gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I 
thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their 
scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. 
But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, 
and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is 
extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall we behold that 
generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that 
dignified obedience, and that subordination of the heart, which 
kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted 
freedom." — Burke. 

If anywhere, poetic diction might be expected in the 
following passage. But though the rhythm is almost metre, 
there is no trace (except perhaps in the noun sighing) of the 
poetic diction : 

" For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, || and 



92 THE DICTION OF PROSE. 

soaring upwards, singing as he rises, \\ and (he) hopes to get to 
heaven and climb above the clouds ;\\ but the poor bird was 
beaten back || with the loud sighings of an eastern wind,, || and his 
motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at 
every breath of the tempest than it could recover by the libra- 
tion and frequent weighing of his wings ; till the little creature 
was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm was 
over ; and then it made a prosperous flight, and did rise and 
sing as if it had learned music and motion from an angel as he 
passed sometimes through the air about his ministries here 
below : so is the prayer of a good man." — Jeremy Taylor. 

The same remark applies to the following : 

" Let us watch him (man) with reverence || as he sets side by 
side the burning gems, || and smooths with soft sculpture the 
jasper pillars, that are to reflect a ceaseless sunshine, and rise 
into a cloudless sky : but not with less reverence let us stand 
by him when, with rough strength and hurried stroke, he smites 
an uncouth animation out of the rocks which he has torn from 
among the moss of the moorland, and heaves into the darkened 
air the pile of iron buttress and rugged wall, instinct with work 
of an imagination || as wild and wayward as the northern sea : 
|| creations of ungainly shape and rigid limb, but full of wolfish 
life : fierce as the winds that beat, and changeful as the clouds 
that shade them." — Buskin. 

Even in the description of St. Mark's at Venice, a passage 
in which prose soars far above its usual pitch, only a few 
forms (not words) can be found peculiar to poetic diction : 

" And in the midst of it the solemn forms of angels, sceptn d 
and robed to the feet, and leaning to each other across the 
gates, their figures indistinct among the gleaming of the golden 
ground through the leaves beside them, interrupted and dim 
like the morning light as it faded back among the branches of 
Eden, when first its gates were angel-guarded long ago." — lb. 

1 The expression " smites the rock" seems suggested by Biblical diction. 



THE DICTION OF PKOSE. 93 

Here, though faded is of course common in prose diction, 
yet the condensed expression " faded back " is poetical. 

The following is a very close approximation to poetic 
rhythm, and at the close the author seems to find poetry 
necessary as a vent for the impassioned sentiment. Yet, 
with the exception, perhaps, of untimely, used as an adverb, 
the diction is that of pure prose. It is the conclusion of a 
description of the last days of George III. : 

" What preacher need moralize on this story 1 What words 
save the simplest are requisite to tell if? It is too terrible 
for tears. The thought of such a misery smites me down in 
submission before the Ruler of kings and men, the Monarch 
Supreme over empires and republics, the inscrutable Dispenser 
of life, death, happiness, victory. ' O brothers ! ' I said 
to those who heard me first in America, ' O brothers ! speak- 
ing the same dear mother-tongue ; O comrades ! enemies no 
more, let us take a mournful hand together as we stand by this 
royal corpse and call a truce to battle ! Low (transposition) he 
lies, to whom the proudest used to kneel once, and who was 
cast lower than the poorest ; dead whom millions prayed for in 
vain. Driven off his throne ; buffeted by rude hands ; with 
his children in revolt ; the darling of his old age killed before 
him untimely, 1 our Lear hangs over her breathless lips, and 
cries, ' Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little ! ' 

Vex not his ghost — oh ! let him pass— he hates him 
That would upon the rack of this tough world 
Stretch him out longer. 

Hush ! strife and quarrel, over the solemn grave. Sound, trum- 
pets, a mournful march. Fall, dark curtain, upon his pageant, || 
his pride, | his grief, | his aw|ful tr£g|edy." — Thackeray. 

It should be stated with reference to the use of save as a 

1 " Killed before him before her time," would he intolerably harsh. 



94 THE DICTION OF PROSE. 

preposition, smite, and buffeted, that the authorised version 
of the Bible has exercised a great influence upon the stand- 
ard of prose. The solemn tone of submission before the 
decrees of God insensibly causes the diction to assume a 
Biblical hue. Hence the use of save, for which except might 
have been substituted. Smite, however, could not be re- 
placed by strike, for the divine origin of the blow would not 
be expressed ; nor could beaten express the author's meaning 
so well as buffeted, which suggests the deepest and most un- 
deserved humiliation. In discourses and treatises on re- 
ligious subjects, the Biblical phraseology is sanctioned by 
custom, and is freely used — perhaps too freely ; for the use 
of antique religious phraseology, except where the thought is 
impassioned, tends to give a sense of unreality to the words, 
and is liable to degenerate into what is called cant. Not 
even in this impassioned style does Thackeray venture to use 
brethren for brothers. Smite expresses a meaning that strike 
does not : brethren would only have differed from brothers by 
being less real. 

Before quitting this very important subject it will be well 
to give an example of poetic prose which has passed the 
border-land between prose and poetry, and which in its ex- 
cessive transpositions, its ambitious attempts at perceptible 
rhythm, and its occasional use of poetic words, presents a 
good specimen of a style that ought to be most carefully 
avoided : 

"The whole school were in ecstasies to hear tales and stories 
from his genius ; even like a flock of birds, chirping in their 
joy, || all new|ly alight|ed 6n | a vern|al hind. || In spite of 
that difference in our age — or oh ! say rather because that 
difference did touch the one heart with tenderness and the 
other with reverence ; how often did we two wander, like elder 



THE DICTION OF PROSE. 95 

and younger brother, in || the siin|light and | the moon|light 
solijtiides ! || Woods into whose inmost recesses we should 
have quaked | alone | to pen|etrate, || in his company were 
glad as gardens, through their most awful umbrage ; and there 
was beauty in the shadows of the old oaks. Cataracts, in whose 
lonesome thunder, as it pealed into those pitchy pools, (excessive 
alliteration) || we diirst | not by | ourselves | have faced | the 
spray, || — in his presence, || tinned with j a merrjy mii|sic 
in | the cZesert (excessive alliteration) and cheerful was (un- 
necessary transposition) the thin mist they cast sparkling up 
into the air. Too severe for our uncompanied spirit, then easily 
overcome with awe, ivas (inexcusable transposition) the solitude 
of those remote inland locks. But as || we acalked ] with him 
[ along | the | u-indjing shores, || how pass||ing sweet I the 
calm | of both | blue depths || — how magnificent the white- 
crested waves, tumbling beneath the black thunder-cloud ! 
More beautiful, (inexcusable transposition and omission of verb) 
because our eyes gazed on it along with his, at the beginning or 
ending of some sudden storm, the apparition of the rainbow." — 
Wilson. 

Among other faults in this passage, the excessive allitera- 
tion is a prominent one. The double alliteration of 

Dinned with | a merr|y miisijc in | the desert, 
is intolerable, except in the metre of poetry ; and elsewhere 
the excess, though concealed from the eye, is obvious to the 
ear, as in " cMrping in their joy, all newZy aZighted in a ver- 
naZ Zand," Alliteration was from the earliest times noticed 
by the English ear. By itself, without rhyme, it was once 
sufficient to constitute poetry. It will be seen hereafter that 
the early English poetry recognised two accented and allite- 
rated' initial syllables (and all vowels were considered identi- 
cal for the purpose of alliteration) to denote a verse. This 
may explain why an excess of alliteration in prose is pecu- 



.96 THE DICTION OF PROSE. 

liarly offensive. Ruskin, in the passage quoted above, writes, 
" among the gleaning of the golden ground ; " but it is the 
combination of poetic characteristics in excess that renders 
the poetic prose of the last quoted passage objectionable. 
The worst fault of all is the use of poetic words — quaked, 
lonesome, umbrage, and even for " just." 

61. Exceptional Poetic Prose. — It has been shown 
that, as a rule, the master-writers of impassioned Prose in 
the English language preserve the distinction between the 
diction of Prose and Poetry. Most students will do well to 
preserve the same distinction. But there are specimens of 
prose which {a) in rhythm, (b) in icords, approximate to 
poetry, and are nevertheless approved, some by the popular, 
some even by the most cultivated taste, (a) The impas- 
sioned descriptive prose of Dickens is almost written in 
metre, as well as with poetic words. (b) The prose of 
Lamb, Coleridge, and writers formed in his school, such as 
Hazlitt, and De Quincey, sometimes employs poetic words; 
and the first two, at least, are thought to be classical writers 
of English prose : 

(a) The earth covered with a sable pall, 

1 As for the burial of yesterday ; 
The clumps of dark trees 

2 Its giant plumes of funeral feathers 
2 Waving sadly to and fro : 

1 All hushed, all noiseless and in deep repose, 

1 Save the swift clouds that shun across the moon, 

And the cautious wind, 
1 As creeping after them upon the ground 
1 It stops to listen, and goes rustling on, 

And stops again, and follows, like a savage 

On the trail. 

Dickens. 



THE DICTION OF PBOSE. 97 

Here all the verses marked 1 are strict dramatic blank 
verse, while the couplet marked 2 has a decided trochaic 
effect. 

(b) "Nothing-plotting, nought-caballing, unmischievous synod ! 
Convocation without intrigue ! parliament without debate ! what 
a lesson dost thou read to council and consistory ! If my pen 
treat of you lightly — as haply it will wander — yet my spirit hath 
gravely felt the wisdom of your custom, when, sitting among 
you in deepest peace, which some out-welling tears would rather 
confirm than disturb, I have reverted to the times of your 
beginnings, and the sowings of the seed by Fox andDewesbury." 
— Lamb, " A Quakers' Meeting." 

The poetic diction of Lamb, together with his careful avoid- 
ance of poetic metre, forms a pleasant kind of incongruity, 
as when he apostrophizes St. Valentine thus : 

" Great is thy name in the rubric, thou venerable Archflamen 
of Hymen ! Immortal Go-between ! who and what manner of 
person art thou ] . . . . Wert thou indeed a mortal prelate, 
with thy tippet and thy rochet on, and decent lawn sleeves ? 
Mysterious personage ! Like unto thee, assuredly there is no 
other mitred father in the calendar." 

Here there is a humorous affectation of sublimity, and 
poetic diction is in its place. And even in his serious 
passages the humour peeps out, and is often expressed by a 
poetic expression or quotation, as : 

"What is the stillness of the desert compared with this 
place 1 what the uncommunicating muteness of fishes ? " 

"Their garb and stillness conjoined present a uniformity 
tranquil and herd-like — as in the pasture — ' forty feeding like one.' " 

When poetic diction is used in this humorous manner, it 
is the result of affectation, an intentional and pleasant affecta- 
tion of bard-like sublimity. When it is not used humorously, 

7 



98 THE DICTION OF PROSE. 

there is the danger that the writer will appear to be affected 
without intending to be so. Nothing but sublimity of thought 
can possibly make sublime diction seem natural. It may be 
a matter of question how far poetic prose — i. e., prose using 
poetic diction — has been justified by success in individual 
instances. It is no question at all that this style is very 
rarely successful, and to be successful at all, must be original. 
A beginner who wants to write poetic prose wishes to suc- 
ceed where only a few men of genius have tried, and only a 
few of those few have succeeded. 

62. Speech the Guide to Prose. — It is impossible 
to write prose by merely resolving to write what is not 
poetry. A positive standard is required as well as negative 
rules ; and the best positive rule that can be given is, subject 
to certain qualifications which will be mentioned presently, to 
write as you would speak. This rule leaves great latitude 
for variety of style and rhythm, as much latitude as is re- 
quired by speech. A man speaks in a very different manner 
according as he is conversing at the dinner-table, or holding 
a literary discussion, or arguing in a law-court, or addressing 
a public meeting or a congregation ; and every different 
shade in speaking will be represented in writing. But the 
differences will consist almost entirely in the rhythm of the 
sentences, in the use of question instead of statement, of short 
sentences instead of long ones, not in words, ichich will be very 
nearly the same throughout. 

63. The differences between Speech and Prose 

spring very naturally from the different circumstances of 
either. The speaker must make his meaning immediately 
intelligible, and must arrest attention at once ; otherwise the 



THE DICTION OF PROSE, 99 

effect is lost altogether. The reader can review a written 
sentence at his leisure. Hence the sentences may fairly be 
a little longer and more complicated in writing than in speech; 
and hence also, for the sake of arresting attention, a little 
sacrifice of literal truth to vividness, in other words, a little 
exaggeration, is not uncommon in speech. While speaking, 
the speaker can explain himself if he perceives that he is not 
understood ; this cannot be done in writing. Hence speech 
is more irregular and less exact than writing. In speaking 
there are certain aids to help the speaker, action and gesticu- 
lation, the modulation of the voice, and the changing expres- 
sion of the countenance ; objects or persons mentioned can 
often be indicated by the hand ; the auditor or audience can 
be questioned, and the expression of their faces can be 
interpreted as assent or dissent, and answered accordingly. 
The result of all these differences in circumstance is that 
speech as compared with writing is, («) less exact in the choice 
of words, (b) more brief, and (c) more varied in construction. 

64. Writing is more exact than Speech in the choice 
of words. "We cannot stand thinking about the most exact 
word when some word to produce an immediate effect is 
required, and therefore in conversation we allow ourselves to 
say, " he's a clever fellow," where, perhaps, we mean " origi- 
nal," or "thoughtful," or "judicious," or "sagacious." In 
the same way "a fine fellow" may be sometimes used in 
conversation to express "gallant," or "unselfish," or 
"noble." This inexactness is extremely common in super- 
latives, which seem almost necessary as stimulants to give 
a flavour to familiar conversation, and to arrest attention. 
Hence, " I feared ' becomes in conversation " I was terribly 
afraid," " It is a pleasant day " becomes " a most delightful 



100 THE DICTION OF PROSE. 

day," and "I was in haste," is changed into " I was in a 
tremendous hurry." This craving for picturesqueness some- 
times manifests itself in similes that would scarcely bear the 
test of writing, e.g., "He's as grave as a judge," "as sharp 
as a needle," etc. Some exaggeration and inexactness of 
this kind is pardonable in speech, though where it is exces- 
sive and obtrusive it makes conversation somewhat tedious 
( and good talkers avoid it) ; but in written prose such in- 
exactness is a fault, except in letters, when something of the 
carelessness of conversation is agreeable. 

65. Writing is less brief than Speech. — The brevity 
of conversation manifests itself in such contractions as don't, 
can't, won't, 's for is, Til for I will, and the like ; in the 
omission of prepositions in such phrases as "What time will 
the train start ?", " What day will you come to see me ?" ; 
in elliptical phrases, such as "I tell you what," "I say "; in the 
use of short, inexact approximations to a meaning that can 
be expressed by a periphrasis, e.g., "It is very unlucky," only 
for "it is very much to be regretted "; " he is sharp enough," 
for "he is sufficiently alive to his own interests" ; and also in 
the use of other short and expressive words which border 
upon, or are, slang, e.g., a snob, a bore, a swell, a muff. 

66. Writing is less varied in construction than 
Speech. — The greater variety of speech is a natural result 
of the presence of a second person who may at any moment 
interrupt, or be appealed to. Thus, compare the following 
narrative translated from Plutarch with the same words put 
into the mouth of Cassius by Shakspeare, and mark the con- 
versational abruptness of the hitter rendering : 

" When they raised their camp, there came two eagles that, 
flying with a marvellous force, lighted upon two of the foremost 



THE DICTION OF PEOSE. 101 

ensigns, and followed the soldiers, which gave them meat and 
fed them until they came near to the city of Philippi, and there, 
one day before the battle, they both fled away." 

Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign 
Two mighty eagles fell ; and there they perched, 
Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands ; 
Who to Philippi here consorted us. 
This morning are they fled away and gone. 

This conversational abruptness also appears in the dra- 
matic rendering by Shakspeare of the following passage from 
Plutarch. Here both passages are intended to represent 
speech ; but it cannot be doubted that Shakspeare's render- 
ing is the more like speech of the two : 

" Among the Yolsces there is an old friend and host of mine, 
an honest, wealthy man, and now a prisoner, who, living before 
in great wealth in his own country, liveth now a poor prisoner 
in the hands of his enemies ; and yet, notwithstanding all this 
his misery and misfortune, it would do me great pleasure if I 
could save him from this one great danger, to keep him from 
being sold as a slave." — North's PhitarcK 

I sometime lay here at Corioli 
At a poor man's house : he used me kindly : 
He cried to me: I saw him prisoner ; 
But then Aufidius was within my view 
And wrath o'erwhelmed my pity : I request you 
To give my poor host freedom. Coriolanus. 

The greater vividness and abruptness of conversation, and 
the appeal to the personal knowledge of the person addressed, 
are illustrated by comparing the two following passages : 

A common slave— you Tmoiv him well by sight- 
Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn 
Like twenty torches join'd, and yet his hand, 
Not sensible of fire, remain'd unscorch'd, — 

Julius Ccesar. 



102 FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 

6 ' There was a slave of the soldiers that did cast a marvellous 
burning flame out of his hand, insomuch as they that saw it 
thought he had been burnt : when the fire was out, it was 
found he had no hurt." — North's Plutarch, 



CHAPTER III. 

FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 

67. Slang arises in part from conversational exaggeration 
carried to excess. " Comfortable" or " merry" being some- 
what sober words, we use " jolly " as being more expressive ; 
so " plucky " is used instead of " bold," a " dodge " instead 
of a " trick," "awfully" instead of " very," a "sham" 
instead of a " deception." 

Again, a desire to speak humorously sometimes origi- 
nates slang. In the attempt to be picturesque, the device 
of poetry is adopted, and an object is represented not by 
the ordinary word representing it, but by some epithet 
or periphrasis. Thus, wine has been called " the rosy," 
a bed "the downy," tobacco "the noxious weed" or 
"the fragrant weed," and a father "the governor." In 
many cases these epithets are quite out of place, and a 
comical effect is produced by the incongruity. The whole 
of the vocabulary of the prize-ring is based upon this 
principle ; it throws a veil of grotesqueness and comicality 
over descriptions that are intrinsically disgusting and brutal. 
More often slang is used to save the trouble of choosing 
the right word. Thus, " he is a jolly fellow," is often used 
to mean that the person spoken of is kind-hearted, or 



FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 103 

generous, or pleasant, or amiable, or good-humoured, or 
amusing, or good. In some cases slang may cover positive 
ignorance of the words of polite diction ; but more often it 
is not so much ignorance as laziness that is the cause. 
Slang is intended to save the necessity of thinking, and it 
answers the purpose. 

68. Technical Slang. — Another kind of slang may be 
called technical. Some technical slang is altogether vulgar. 
No one in polite society could use the slang of thieves or 
roughs. But (i.) every art and profession and trade has 
some technical terms of its own, which may be called its 
slang. Thus the Cambridge man speaks of being " plucked," 
the Oxford man of being " ploughed," the barrister of 
" eating his terms" and "getting silk," the cavalry officer 
of " the heavies," and so on. And besides this legitimate 
use of slang in speaking of particular employments, there is 
(ii.) another which consists in the metaphorical application of 
technical terms of some employment, to objects not in the 
scope of that employment. Thus, men are said " to pull 
well together," instead of "to work well together;" 
a diplomatist outwitting another, is said to " force his 
antagonist's hand;" a witness is exposed to "a running 
fire of questions." All these expressions lie within the 
province of polite diction. They are technical metaphors 
borrowed from athletic sports, polite amusements, and war- 
fare ; and being also vivid and real, they are liked by the 
English people, and used by our best authors. King 
Henry Y. answers the French ambassadors with an elabo- 
rate metaphor from the game of tennis : 

When we have match'd our rackets to these balls, 
We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set 
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard. 



104 FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 

Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler 
That all the courts of France will be disturbed 
With chaces. Henry V. l 

But many other technical metaphors, borrowed from 
agriculture and horse-racing, are in bad taste and vulgar. 
The only safe rule by which we can distinguish between 
polite and vulgar diction in such cases, is the custom of 
polite society. But the principle upon which the rule of 
discrimination ought to be based is this : The metaphor 
should be (1) obvious, and not far-fetched ; (2) necessary, or, 
at all events, very useful, substituting a short and clear 
expression for a long and vague one. 

Thus we might perhaps say of the result of a competitive 
examination, that the first man " won in a canter; " but it 
would be an unnecessary and vulgar expression to speak of 
" trotting a person out," or instead of saying that a child 
is " nearly ten years old," to say that he is " rising ten." 
Again, though we can say metaphorically, " The die is 
cast," and, " I will stake my all," it is slang to say, " He 
is a trump," for this is unnecessary, and the metaphorical 
meaning too loosely corresponds to the technical reality. 
On the other hand, "This fellow is evidently hedging," 
contains a terse and almost necessary metaphor. 

69. Fine Writing, — Closely connected with slang, is a 
kind of writing very common in inferior newspapers, in 
which the writer carefully avoids saying what he means in 
a natural manner, always preferring some kind of circumlo- 
cution. This, which may be called the fault of fine writing, 
often springs from the consciousness of a want of familiarity 

1 Of course the present of the tennis-balls is a special reason for this 
elaborate Metaphor.— Henry V., Act i. Sc. 2. 1. 258. 



FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 105 

with the common words of polite diction, and from a con- 
sequent determination to avoid vulgarity at any price. Thus, 
instead of " a fine lot of poultry," we find " an interesting 
assortment of the feathered creation;" "they lunched or 
dined," becomes " they partook of some refreshment," and 
instead of "women," we have " that moiety of the popula- 
tion wont to be termed the gentler sex." Sometimes the 
chase after fine words results in letting slip any intelligible 
meaning, or, at all events, it produces an inconvenient 
vagueness, as in " The return of youths to their respective 
boarding-houses induces a solicitude for their personal 
comfort and attraction." 

The one peculiarity of this very offensive style is that 
it eschews words of pure English derivation as much as 
possible. Instead of a " man," ilprefers an " individual; " 
instead of a "kind," a "species;" instead of "May I 
help you to some potatoes ? " it prefers " may I assist you ; " 
instead of " I have enough of this," it prefers "I have 
sufficient of this," which is as incorrect as "I have in- 
adequate of this." In ascending a hill, a man is said (in 
fine writing) to " climb to its wpex" instead of to its top. 
Besides spoiling the particular sentence in which it occurs, 
this substitution of recondite for common words engenders 
an inaccurate use of the former, as when period is used for a 
point of time, and a man proposes to do something " at the 
earliest practicable period/ 5 instead of "as soon as possible," 
or, " at the earliest opportunity: 5 ' 

Even where fine ivriiing does not result in vagueness, it 
is sure to be pompous and stilted. A well-known example 
of this style is quoted by Lord Macaulay from Dr. Johnson, 
who tells the same story in the two following different 
styles. The former and more natural version is taken from 



106 FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 

his letters ; the latter from his " Journey to the Hebrides." 
Dr. Johnson seems to have thought the diction, as well as 
the rhythm of epistolary correspondence unfit for the 
dignity of a book. 

(1) "When we were taken upstairs, a dirty fellow bounced 
out of the bed on which one of us was to lie." 

(2) " Out of one of the beds on which we were to repose, 
started up at our entrance a man as black as a Cyclops from the 
forge." 

One common fault in this pompous style is to substitute 
" we " for "I." ' Where a person is writing in the name of 
a number of persons, — as, for instance, in a newspaper, — 
or where he includes the reader, as his companion, the 
"we" is in place : it represents the truth, and, because it 
represents the truth, it adds a certain weight to what is 
written. But where a man is expressing his individual 
convictions, or narrating his personal experiences, " we " is 
is out of place, and is often ridiculous, as if a man should 
write " we once went with our wife to the Crystal Palace." 

70. Patch-work. — The fault of fine writing very often 
manifests itself in a hankering after little chips of poetic 
expressions as substitutes for common words. Thus, in- 
stead of "portrait," we are treated to "a counterfeit pre- 
sentment ;" instead of " a dinner-table," we have " a festive 
board;" instead of "tea," "the cup that cheers, but not 
inebriates;" and, in the same way, we are told that "the 
head and front" of an author's offending is that his 
moments of common sense are "few and far between." 

Are we then never to use poetic quotations or amusing 

1 Sec extract from Wilson above. Par. CO. 



FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 107 

periphrases to illustrate and enliven what we have to say ? 
Yes, when they really are amusing and really do illustrate, 
e.g., Addison's periphrasis for a "fan," " this little modish 
machine," at once suggests a deliberate use of it in a 
systematic warfare of flirtation. But a poetic quotation 
that has been quoted threadbare is neither amusing nor 
illustrative, and a commonplace periphrasis is offensive. 
Lamb's essays contain many exquisite examples of the use 
of (a) quotation and (b) periphrasis, which show at once the 
beauty of his style and the danger of imitating it : 

(a) a Dost thou love silence deep as that i before the winds 
were made ? ' go not into the wilderness, descend not into the 
profundities of the earth, shut not up thy casements, nor pour 
wax into the little cells of thy ears, with little-faith'd, self-mis- 
trusting Ulysses. — Retire with me into a Quaker's Meeting. . . . 
What is the stillness of the desert compared with this place ? 
what the uncommunicating muteness of fishes f 1 Here the god- 
dess reigns and revels. e Boreas and Cesias and Argestes loud ' 
do not with their interconfounding uproars more augment the 
brawl, nor the waves of the blown Baltic with their clubbed 
sounds — than their opposite (Silence her sacred self) is multiplied 
and rendered more intense by numbers and by sympathy." 

(b) " In other words, this is the day on which those charming 
little missives ycleped Valentines, cross and intercross each other 
at every street and turning. The weary and all forspent two- 
penny postman sinks beneath a load of delicate embarrassments, 
not his own. It is scarcely credible to what extent this ephemeral 
courtship is carried on in this loving town, to the great enrich- 
ment of porters, and detriment of knockers and bell- wires. In 
these little visioal interpretations no emblem is so common as the 
heart, — that little three-cornered exponent of all our hopes and 

1 Horace, "mutis piscibus." 



108 FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 

fears. . . . Custom has settled these things, and awarded the 
seat of sentiment to the aforesaid triangle.'' 9 

Further on, the posting of a Valentine is described thus : 

" This, on Valentine's eve, he committed to the all-sivalloiving 
indiscriminate orifice (0 ignoble trust) of the common post ; but 
the humble medium did its duty, and from his watchful stand, 
the next morning he saw the cheerful messenger knock, and by- 
and-by the precious charge delivered." 

The antidote to " fine writing "Is simplicity and straight- 
forwardness. Slang is more difficult to avoid, and when any 
one has once contracted a habit of slang, he often afterwards, 
in the reaction from one bad habit, falls into another almost 
as bad, the habit of u fine writing;" In the great anxiety 
to avoid what is grossly vulgar, the writer chooses, not 
the simplest, but the finest words that he can think of. 
Familiarity with one or two standard English works, such 
as the authorized version of the Bible, and Shakspeare, will 
go far to cure both slang and fine writing. But besides 
these, there must be a feeling that one has something to 
say, and a desire to say it as clearly as possible — a supe- 
riority to that temptation of making petty jokes and wittic- 
isms which characterizes the writer 

who now to sense,- bow nonsense, leaning, 
Means not, but blunders round about a meaning, 

and a determination to go straight to the point, and to use 
the clearest words in the clearest possible way. 

71. The Antidote for Tautology. — " Fine writing " 
thinks it can escape tautology of thought by avoiding mere 
repetition of language. Repetition of thought is unques- 
tionably a fault, but it is only increased by being glossed 
over by variety of expression. When we are' reading 



FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 109 

one of Bishop Burnet's descriptions of character, it is no 
doubt unpleasant to find seven or eight consecutive sen- 
tences beginning with: "he." Such a style of writing 
betokens a want of connected thought, and an absence of 
that discrimination which would emphasize now one, now 
another circumstance, and which, by placing the emphatic 
word in each case at the beginning, would naturally vary 
the rhythm and construction. But the cure for the fault 
lies in an improvement of the thought, not merely in vary- 
ing the expression of it. 

If the thought that is uppermost in the writer's mind be 
allowed its proper emphatic position in the sentence, the 
result will be (provided that the writer thinks clearly) a 
clear, straightforward style which will not involve any un- 
pleasant tautology. The following passage is a description of 
the character of Charles II. in Bishop Burnet's characteristic 
style. Almost every sentence begins with he or his, and the 
subject is in each case closely followed by the verb. Such 
a repetition in good authors would imply an increasing 
emphasis on the pronoun, denoting he and no one else. 
Thus, " The captain was the life and soul of the expedition : 
it was he who first pointed out the possibility of advancing ; 
he warned them of the approaching scarcity of provisions ; 
he showed how they might replenish their exhausted stock ; 
he calmed the excessive exultation of the ignorant ; he cheered 
the weary and dejected ; in a word, he, and he alone, was 
entitled to the merit of their ultimate success." No such 
justification exists for the monotonous repetition in Bishop 
Burnet : 

"He had a very good understanding. He knew well the 
state of affairs both at home and abroad. He had a softness of 
temper that charmed all who came near him, till they found 



110 FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 

how little they could depend on good looks, kind words, and 
fair promises, in which he was liberal to excess, because he 
intended nothing by them but to get rid of importunities, and 
to silence all farther pressing upon him. He seemed to have no 
sense of religion : both at prayers and at sacrament, he, as it 
were, took care to satisfy people that he was in no sort con- 
cerned in that about which he was employed. So that he was 
very far from being a hypocrite, unless his assisting at those 
performances was a sort of hypocrisy (as no doubt it was) : but 
he was sure not to increase that, by any the least appearance 
of religion. He said once to myself he was no atheist, but he 
could not think God could make a man miserable only for 
taking a little pleasure out of the way." 

The cure for such tautology is, not to adopt a periphrasis 
for every he, — " The merry monarch had a very good under- 
standing;" " The son of Charles I. knew well the state of 
affairs;" " The royal votary of pleasure had a softness of 
temper; " " The third of the Stuarts seemed to have no sense 
of religion ;" " This irreligious monarch said once to myself," 
— but rather to give its duly emphatic position to every word 
that should be emphatic, and to supply the necessary logical 
connection between each sentence, e.g., 

"He had a very good understanding, and knew well," etc. 
" His temper was so soft," etc. 

In the following description of a " Poor Eelation," Lamb 
seems, whether consciously or not, to imitate the description 
of the Virtuous Woman in the Book of Proverbs. 1 There 
is a mock assumption of dignity, superior to rhetoric and 
emphasis : 

" He entereth smiling and — embarrassed. He holdeth out his 

1 Proverbs xxxi. Examples of the Oriental fondness for repetition are the 
recurring' "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego," "cornet, flute, harp," 
etc., in the Book of Daniel. There are cases where such repetition befits the 
nature of the subject. 



FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. Ill 

hand to you to shake, and — draweth it back again. He casually 
looketh in about dinner-time — when the table is full. He 
offereth to go away, seeing you have company — but is induced 
to stay." 

Six sentences follow beginning in the same way. Three 
or four sentences may sometimes naturally and pleasingly 
begin in the same way, but an excess is to be avoided, 
though not by the use of periphrasis. 

Of course there are cases where a periphrasis is an 
essential part of the sense. " The conqueror of Jena was 
not likely to consent to such terms as these," is quite a 
different statement from the same sentence with " Napoleon" 
for " the conqueror of Jena." It is equivalent to saying, 
" Napoleon, flushed with the victory of Jena, was not likely, 
to," etc. But without this justification, a periphrasis used 
merely to disguise tautology, is objectionable. 

Contrast with the passage quoted above from Burnet the 
variety of the following description of the valour of Corio- 
lanus, where some repetition is natural and justifiable, as 
the he is emphatic. Here tautology is not avoided by peri- 
phrases, but by the emphatic position of the object, or of 
some adverbial phrase or sentence. 

He bestrid 
An o'er-pressed Roman, and i' the consul's view 
Slew three opposers : Tar quirts self he met, 
And struck him on his knee : in that day's feats, 
When he might act the woman in the scene, 
He proved best man i' the field, and for his meed 
Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil-age 
Man-enter 'd thus, he waxed like a sea, 
And in the brunt of seventeen battles since, 
He lurch'd all swords of the garland. 

72. Obscurity may arise (i.) from an inaccurate and lax 



112 FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 

use of words, the same word being used in different senses; 
(ii.) from a careless arrangement of words ; (iii.) from a care- 
less use of certain ambiguous words, especially the pronouns. 
The accurate use of words is treated of above in the Chapter 
on Words, and need not be discussed here. A few remarks 
will be made on (ii.) the arrangement of sentences ; (iii.) the 
use of jironouns, etc., with a view to clearness. Obscurity 
is not a necessary accompaniment of long sentences, nor can 
it be avoided by merely avoiding long sentences. A well- 
arranged sentence may be clear, however long it may be, if 
the dependent and subordinate clauses are so arranged as 
not to interfere with the independent part which constitutes, 
as it were, the back bone of the sentence. A marked dis- 
tinction must be made between (a) the sentences that are 
long by reason of enumeration (i.e., the number of the 
subordinate clauses), and (b) sentences that are long by 
reason of complication. The number of subordinate clauses 
makes but little difference provided that they are simple, and 
simply connected with the main part of the sentence. Thus : 
(a.) A long enumerative sentence : — 

" Now that you have recognized the failure of your plans, and 
have lost all hope of success ; now that you are deserted by 
your followers and suspected by your own family ; a king with- 
out subjects, a general without an army, and a plotter without 
so much as the basis for a plot, — it is absurd for you to expect to 
dictate in your adversity the same conditions which you rejected 
in prosperity." 

But if the subordinate clauses are complicated, and them- 
selves contain other subordinate clauses, it is difficult to 
make even a short sentence readily perspicuous, e.g., 

(b.) A complicated sentence: — 

"The former, being a man of good parts of learning, and 



FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. ll3 

after some years spent in New College in Oxford, of which his 
father had been formerly fellow (that family pretending and 
enjoying many privileges there, as of kin to the founder), had 
spent his time abroad, in Geneva and among the cantons of 
Switzerland." — Clarendon. 

When the sentence is longer, the difficulty is greatly 
increased : 

" Yet when that discovery drew no other severity but the 
turning him out of office, and the passing a sentence con- 
demning him to die for it (which was presently pardoned, and 
he was after a short confinement restored to his liberty), all 
men believed that the king knew of the letter, and that the pre- 
tended confession of the secretary was only collusion to lay the 
jealousies of the king's favouring popery, which still hung upon 
him, notwithstanding his writing on the Revelation, and his 
affecting to enter on all occasions into controversy, asserting in 
particular that the Pope was antichrist." — Burnet. 

A sentence that is heterogeneous cannot be readily com- 
prehended. There is a difficulty in passing rapidly from one 
statement to a second having no natural connection with the 
first. This difficulty remains, even if the statements are 
written as separate sentences. The mere transition from one 
subject of a verb to another, if too abrupt, is sufficient to 
prevent ready comprehension. 

The following sentence describes an execution, its subse- 
quent legalization, a pardon, the suppression of a rebellion, a 
popular reaction, the consequent unpopularity of a states- 
man, and a general characteristic of the English people. 
Such a sentence would have been far better broken up into 
two or three sentences. 

(c.) Heterogeneous sentence: 

" In all, fifty-eight were executed in several places, whose 



114 FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 

attainders were confirmed by an act of the f ollowing parliament ; 
six hundred of the rabble were appointed to come before the 
queen with halters about their necks, and to beg their lives, 
which she granted them ; and so was this storm dissipated : 
only the effusion after it was thought too liberal : and this excess 
of punishment was generally cast on Gardiner, and made him 
become very hateful to the nation, which has been always much 
moved at a repetition of such sad spectacles." 

Obscurity also arises from inversions and omissions. — In 
letter- writing, inversions are not uncommon, and sometimes 
cause mistakes, especially where punctuation is neglected ; 
but they are most common in poetry, e.g., 

(d.) Inversion : 

And all the air a solemn stillness holds. 

Gray's Elegy. 

The following is a case of intentional ambiguity : 

The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose, 
But him outlive and die a violent death. 

Skakspeare. 

When Adam, first of men, 
To first of women, Eve, thus moving speech, 
Turned him all ear to hear new utterance flow. 

Milton. 

Here there would have been some obscurity even if the 
sentence had run " turned him to Eve (who was) all ear to 
hear," etc. But the inversion makes the obscurity still 
greater. 

The omission or rather non-repetition of the Subject some- 
times strains the attention, and causes some degree of obscu- 
rity, especially when the non-repetition is in a subordinate 
clause. 



FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 115 

(e.) Non-repetition of Subject : 

" So that it is but a groundless fiction, made by those who 
have either been the authors, or at least have laid down the 
principles of all the rebellions, and yet would cast that blame 
on others, and exempt themselves from it ; as if they were the 
surest friends of princes, while they design to enslave them to a 
foreign power, and will neither allow them to reign nor to live, 
but at the mercy of the head of that principality to which all 
other powers must bend ; or break if they meet with an age 
that is so credulous and superstitious as to receive their dictates." 
— Burnet. 

The omission of the Subject is particularly likely to cause 
obscurity after a Kelative standing as Subject : 

" Just at this moment I met a man who seemed a suspicious 

sort of fellow, and turned down a lane ( to avoid \ lm " ) 

V ( me. ; 

Here, if the sentence ended at the word " lane," the ambi- 
guity would be complete. 

73. Ambiguous Words, and above all the pronouns, 
often cause obscurity. 

A rule should be laid down that no pronoun is to be used 
unless the context clearly shows what noun is represented by 
the pronoun. 

(a.) Ambiguity of personal pronouns : — - 

" By these the King was mollified, and resolved to restore him 
(the Duke of Monmouth) again to his favour. It stuck much 
at the confession that he was to make. The King promised that 
no use should be made of it : but he stood on it, that he must 
tell him the whole truth of the matter. Upon which he con- 
sented to satisfy the King. But he would say nothing to the 
(Duke of York) more than to ask his pardon in a general com- 
pliment." 



116 FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 

The ambiguity arising from he in a reported speech is well 
known : 

"He told the coachman that he would be the death of him if 
he did not take care what he was about and mind what he said." 

Here the intention of the writer was that the he in the 
" he would be the death" should refer to the coachman, 
who would cause his employer to lose his life by rash 
driving, but the employer might very easily be meant. 

(b.) The relative pronoun also causes ambiguity when the 
antecedent is not clearly indicated. When the relative may 
refer to a noun in the preceding sentence, or to the whole of 
the sentence, the ambiguity is sometimes very perplexing, 
e.g., " There was a public-house next door which was a 
great nuisance." Here which may refer to the " public- 
house," but it may refer, not to the " public-house," but to 
to the fact that the public-house was next door. Strictly 
speaking, that should have been used in the former case, and 
which in the latter. 1 

It is a vulgar fault to connect heterogeneous sentences and 
combine them into one long sentence by a frequent use of 
the relative pronoun. Every repetition of the relative in the 
same sentence introduces a possibility of ambiguity, and 
therefore an excessive use of which (or, as it has been 
jestingly termed, " the sin of witchcraft") ought to be care- 
fully avoided. The standard prose writers of the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries sometimes commit this fault. 
It would have been better not to combine two sentences by 
the relative adverb where, but to keep the two distinct in — 

1 That should introduce a clause defining or limiting the antecedev t, 
which a fact about the antecedent. "A friend that helps is better thin 
my friend who (for he) only advises." — See Shakespearian Grammar, p. 176-7. 



FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 117 

"He is supposed to have fallen by his father's death into the 
hands of his uncle, a vintner near Charing Cross, who sent him 
for some time to Dr. Busby at Westminster ; but, not intending 
to give him any education beyond that of the school, took him 
when he was well advanced in literature to his own house, where 
the Earl of Dorset, celebrated for patronage of genius, found 
him by chance, as Burnet relates, reading Horace, and was so 
well pleased with his proficiency, that he undertook the care and 
cost of his academical education." 

Here, preceded by a fullstop, would be better than where. 

This leads us to distinguish those cases (a) where the 
relative who, etc., is divisible into the demonstrative with 
some conjunction, " and he," "for he," etc., from those 
cases (j3) where the relative is indivisible. 

(a). Divisible Relative. 

"And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast 
them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely ; who, 
(and he) having received such a charge, thrust them into the 
inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks." — Acts of 
the Apostles, xvi. 23, 24. 

This use of the Belative is perhaps an imitation of Latin. 
It is at all events more suitable for Latin, where the Antece- 
dent of the Eelative is indicated by the gender and number 
of the Belative, than for English where no inflectional 
means exist for connecting the Belative with its Antecedent, 
so as to avoid ambiguity. 1 

(]3). Indivisible Relative. 

The man that hath no music in himself, 

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. 

Merchant of Venice. 

1 When and where are often thus used. 



118 FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 

Here the Kelative does not introduce an additional fact, 
but an essential part of the subject, which is not complete 
without the Eelative clause. In this case the Relative cannot 
be avoided by using the demonstrative and a conjunction. 

(c.) The Negative often causes ambiguity when it is not clear 
what part of the sentence is modified by not. " The remedy 
for drunkenness is not-to-be-ascetic, or is-not to-be-ascetic." 
" I shall not help-you-because-you-are-my-friend (but because 
you are in the right)," or " I shall-not-help-you, because- 
you-are-my-enemy." 

The following instance, though not itself ambiguous, 
suggests the ambiguities that may arise in this way : 

" They shall not build, and another inhabit ; they shall not 
plant, and another eat." — Isaiah lxv. 22. (A. Y.) 

(d.) Any is often ambiguously used. When not modified by a 
negative, it means " any you like," i.e., " every ;" but " not 
any" instead of meaning "not every," means "not a single 
one." Hence, where the negative is carelessly placed, any 
becomes ambiguous, because we cannot tell whether it 
means every or one, e.g., 

' i No person shall derive any benefit from this rule who has 
not been engaged for at least five years to a house of business 
employing not less than a hundred clerks at any time." 

This ought to mean " em}jloying at no time less than a 
hundred;" but any in such cases is often confused with 
some. Again, in "I cannot believe anything that you 
say," and " I cannot believe anything that you choose to 
say," anything means in the first case " a single thing," in 
the second case " everything." 

It is quite impossible to determine, without fuller context, 
the meaning of the word any in such a sentence as : 



FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 119 

"I am not bound to receive any messenger whom you may 
send." 

(e.) But sometimes causes obscurity, and since it may 
mean, according to the context, except, or on the other hand, 
or only, must be very carefully handled. 

(a) " As for the falsehood of your brother, I feel no doubt ; 
but what you say is true." 

" As for the falsehood of your brother, I feel no doubt but 
what you say is true." 

(,3) " I expected twelve; but (either only or contrary to my 
expectation) ten came." 

The following is perfectly clear, but shows the possibility 
of ambiguity : 

(7) There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark 
But he's an arrant knave. 

Hamlet. 

(/.) Adverbs, when misplaced, or even inverted for em- 
phasis, may easily cause obscurity. Sometimes without 
being positively wrongly placed, they cause confusion when 
they come at the end of a clause, and are followed by 
a new clause beginning with a participle : 

" He left the room very slowly repeating his determination 
not to obey." 

' ' He charged me with peculation falsely asserting that I had 
not sent in my accounts." 

(g.) Participles are often used with nothing to show what 
noun they qualify. This produces great obscurity in poetry. 
Thus, in the passage quoted above from Milton : 

Adam, first of men, 
To first of women, Eve, thus moving speech 
Turned him. 



120 FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 

But such ambiguity is also common in the most ordinary- 
prose. 

(a) "I did not hear what you said coming so suddenly into 
the noisy room." 

(/3) "I saw an old schoolfellow yesterday when I was in 
London ivalking down Regent Street, carpet-bag in hand." 

(7) "I must be forgiven if this stranger has not received 
allowance from me, placed in these trying circumstances, and 
surrounded by everything that can perplex and distract." 

(h.) A congestion of infinitives causes ambiguity, when it 
is not clear whether an infinitive is parallel to or depending 
on a previous infinitive. This ambiguity may occur even 
in a very short sentence : 

"Do you intend to send your son to help me to work or to 
play?" 

(1) " Do you intend (to send your son, or to help me, or to 
work, or to play ?) " 

(2) "... to send your son (that he may help me or that 
he may work or that he may play V) " 

(3) " ... to send your son to help me (that I may work or 
that I may play V) " 

74. The Antidote for Obscurity is a careful obser- 
vation of such natural obscurities of the English language 
as^have been enumerated above, and watchfulness in avoiding 
them. The causes of error are very few, but they recur 
again and again ; and if they are once carefully noted and 
avoided, a very few simple rules will be sufficient to prevent 
a great many mistakes. For example, a careful use of the 
relative and personal pronouns will remove a great many 
common obscurities. 

Conversational license sometimes encourages us to take 
liberties in writing which produce obscurity : against this 



FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 121 

we must be on our guard. As there are few inflections in 
English, the function of a word in a sentence is determined 
partly by the position of the word, partly by emphasis and 
modulation of the voice. The four words " When will you 
ride ? " admit of four somewhat different meanings, accord- 
ing as the emphasis is laid on one or other of the words. 
There is a danger that when we write we may write too 
much as we speak, forgetting that a reader cannot be ex- 
pected to put the precise emphasis which we should put. 
The emphasis is perhaps necessary to explain the exact 
meaning, and in such cases what was clear when spoken, 
becomes obscure when written. Almost all the ambiguous 
sentences noted in the last paragraph would be free from 
obscurity if they were spoken. It follows that more care 
must be bestowed upon the arrangement of words in writing 
than in conversation, 

A few further remarks on the best way to write or speak 
a long sentence intelligibly, will be conveniently given under 
the head of the rhetorical period. 

75. The Rhetorical Period is based upon the necessity 
for (a) clearness and (b) impressiveness which is felt by 
those who have to persuade a large assembly. The paren- 
theses and rambling anarchy of conversation are out of 
place here : for rhetoric must be pointed and incisive. The 
continuous pursuit of some thread of subtle thought, the 
quiet soliloquizing or sudden outburst of lyrical poetry, are 
also out of place, — either too subtle, or too quiet, or too 
difficult to follow for a large audience of average persons. 
Excitement must be sometimes produced, but the way for 
it must be carefully prepared. There must be no surprises 
and perplexities to the audience, nothing to prevent them 



122 FAULTS IX DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 

from being carried uninterruptedly and insensibly along with 
the speaker. No speaker would begin a long speech by 

O that this too, too solid flesh would melt ! 
or, 

Ruin seize thee, ruthless king ! 
or, 

Hence, loathed Melancholy. 

Accordingly, a long rhetorical sentence is often preceded by 
a kind of introductory epitome of what is going to be said. 
Many examples of this might be extracted from Burke. The 
two following, which are consecutive in the original, will 

/suffice : 

"But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions 
which made power gentle, and obedience liberal, which harmo- 
nized the different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimi- 
lation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify 
and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new con- 
quering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of 
life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas furnished 
from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns 
and the understanding ratifies as necessary to cover the defects 
of our naked shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our 
own estimation, are to be exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and 
antiquated fashion." — Burke. 

The repetition of the connecting words, the conjunctions, 
relative pronouns, auxiliary verbs, and prepositions in a 
long sentence is very conducive to clearness, often also to 
impressiveness, as in the following example : 

" My lords, you have here also the lights of our religion ; you 
have the bishops of England. My lords, yoii have that true 
image of the primitive church in its ancient form, in its ancient 
ordinances, purified from the superstitions and the vices which a 



FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 123 

long succession of ages will bring upon the best institutions. 
You have the representatives of that religion which says that 
their God is love, that the very vital spirit of their institution is 
charity; a religion which" etc. " Therefore it is with confi- 
dence that, ordered by the Commons, I impeach Warren Hast- 
ings, Esq., of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him 
in the name of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament 
assembled, whose parliamentary trust he has betrayed. I im- 
peach him in the name of," etc. (three more times repeated.) — 
Burke. 

(b.) Impressiveness and clearness both require the antithe- 
tical style, which is very common in rhetoric. Very common- 
place considerations may explain the kind of duality of 
expression which pervades many great popular harangues. 
The mere effort to make one's meaning perfectly clear in a 
somewhat noisy audience (and perhaps the convenience of 
gaining more time for thought) may explain why speakers 
should sometimes use two words for one, so that if one be 
lost, the meaning may be explained by the other, e.g., " If I 
saw a hamlet, or if I saw a homestead at the foot of yonder 
mountain." 1 

But, independent of all such obvious considerations of ex- 
pediency, there is something striking in the neatness and sym- 
metry of a well-balanced antithesis which arrests the attention. 
Very often the meaning of one-half of the antithesis is also 
illustrated by the other half. For example, in considering 
the meaning of liberal in such a sentence as " all the 
pleasing illusions which made power gentle, and obedience 
liberal," we are helped very much by bearing in mind that 

1 Twice repeated in a beautiful and well-known passage in one of Mr. 
Bright' s speeches (as reported in the Times), illustrating the danger from 
impending political disturbance by a description of the danger of a hamlet 
situated at the foot of a volcanic mountain. 



124 FAULTS IN DICTION, AND THEIR REMEDIES. 

" liberal obedience " corresponds to " gentle power," i.e., 
power without the natural defect of power, brutality ; and 
hence we are led to the inference that " liberal obedience M 
means obedience without the natural defect of obedience, i.e., 
without servility. Any page of Burke's speeches will give 
instances of antithesis : 

" They had long views. They aimed at the rule, not at the 
destruction of their country. They were men of great civil and 
great military talents, and, if the terror, the ornament of their 
age." — Burke. 

A constant repetition of antithesis becomes forced and 
wearisome, especially when accompanied by alliteration : 

" Who can persuade where treason is above reason, and 
might ruleth right, and it is had for lawful whatsoever is lust- 
ful, and commotioners are better than commissioners, and 
common woe is named common wealth 1 " — CheJce, quoted by 
Ben Jonson. 

When the audience is worked up to a sufficient height, 
the impressiveness of rhetoric not only justifies, but some- 
times demands the impassioned exclamations and repetitions 
of poetry. See the passage quoted from Burke 1 in para- 
graph 60, where, after the quiet introduction, "It is now 
sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France," 
the speaker 1 goes on to, " Oh, what a revolution ! . . . . 
Never, never more shall we behold . ... It is gone, that 
sensibility' of principle, ' ' etc. 

The impressiveness of rhetoric requires an abundant use 

1 The " Reflections on the Revolution in France," though written in "a 
letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris/' have notlung but 
the " dear sir " at the beginning in common with the style of a letter. 



SIMILE AND METAPHOE. 125 

of metaphor, — not the quiet, subtle, and exquisite metaphor 
of the higher kind of written prose, but effective and in- 
telligible metaphor. Khetoric is altogether alien from ex~ 
quisiteness; it addresses itself to the average person, and is 
very often forcible at the expense of grace : 

" In the groves of their Academy, at the end of eveiy vista, you 
see nothing but the gallows." — Burke. 

It is scarcely necessary to add that a repetition of the 
period, unbroken by more abrupt sentences, would soon 
become monotonous, and produce a sense of artificiality. 
Cicero says that the continuous use of the period is fitter for 
history and panegyric than for forensic oratory. He adds 
that in oratorical narration and compliment it can be more 
freely used than in other parts of an orator's speech. The 
frequent use of the period may tend to ornateness, as in 
Burke ; but we know that Burke's speeches were not re- 
markable for their success in persuading. 1 



CHAPTER IV. 

SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 



76. Similarity. — In order to describe an object that has 
not been seen we use the description of some object or objects 
that have been seen. Thus, to describe a lion to a person 
who had never seen one, we should say that it had some- 
thing like a horse's mane, the claws of a cat, etc. We 
might say, " A lion is like a monstrous cat with a horse's 

1 See page 222. 



126 SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 

mane." This sentence expresses a likeness of things, or a 
similarity. 

77. Simile. — In order to describe some relation that can- 
not be seen, e.g., the relation between a ship and the water, 
as regards the action of the former upon the latter, to a lands- 
man who had never seen 1 the sea or a ship, we might say, 
"The ship acts upon the water as a plough turns up the 
land." In other words, " The unknown relation between the 
ship and the sea is similar to the known relation between 
the plough and the land." This sentence expresses a simi- 
larity of relations, and is called a simile. It is frequently 
expressed thus : 

" As the plough turns up the land, so the ship acts on the 
sea." 

Def. — A Simile is a sentence expressing a simi- 
larity of relations. 

1 Very rarely a simile illustrates what is seen by what is not seen. Take, 
as an example, the following description of the rainbow over a cataract : 

But on the verge 
From side to side, beneath the glittering morn 
An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge, 
Like Hope upon a deathbed, and, unworn 
Its steady dyes, while all around is torn 
By the distracted waters, bears serene 
Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn : 
Resembling, 'mid the horror of the scene, 
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien. 

Childe Harold. 

These similes are intended, not to make the object described clearer, but 
more interesting. They suggest a kind of sympathy and personality in 
Nature. " A sighing oak" and " an angry torrent" give clearness as well as 
interest, because sighs and anger are familiar to all; but " Love watching 



SIMILE AND METAPHOE. 127 

Consequently a simile is a kind of rhetorical proportion, 
and must, when fully expressed, contain four terms : 

A : B : : C : D. 

78. Compression of Simile into Metaphor. — A 

simile lingers over illustration and ornament, and is there- 
fore better suited for poetry than for prose. Moreover, when 
a simile has been long in use, there is a tendency to consider 
the assimilated relations not merely as similar but as identical. 
The simile modestly asserts that the relation between the ship 
and the sea is like ploughing. The compressed simile goes 
further, and asserts that the relation between the ship and 
the sea is ploughing. It is expressed thus: " The ship 
ploughs the sea." 

Thus the relation between the plough and the land is 
transferred to the ship and the sea. A simile thus com- 
pressed is called a Metaphor, i.e., transference. 

Def. A Metaphor is a transference of the relation 
between one set of objects to another, for the pur- 
pose of brief explanation. 

79. Metaphor fully stated or implied. — A metaphor 
may be either fully stated, as " The ship ploughs (or is the 
plough of) the sea" or implied, as "The winds are the horses 
that draw the plough of the sea." In the former case it is 

Madness " does not help you to see the waterfall, but only to feel the charm 
of it. The following is not on quite the same footing : 

She sat like Patience on a monument, 

Smiling at Grief. Twelfth Night. 

A woman is compared, not to Patience in the abstract, but to a female figure 
representing it. The prose version would be, " She looked so patient, that 
she might have stood for a statue of Patience." 



128 SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 

distinctly stated, in the latter implied, that the " plough of 
the sea " represents a ship. 

80. Implied Metaphor the basis of Language. — A 
great part of our ordinary language, all that concerns the 
relations of invisible things, consists of implied metaphors; 
for we most naturally describe the relations of those things 
which are not visible, tangible, etc., by means of the re- 
lations of those things which are visible, tangible, etc. 
We are in the habit of assuming the existence of a certain 
proportion or analogy between the relations of the mind 
and those of the body. This analogy is the foundation 
of all words that express mental and moral qualities. For 
example, we do not know how a thought suggests itself 
suddenly to the mind, but we do know how an external 
object makes itself felt by the body. Experience teaches us 
that anything which strikes the body makes itself suddenly 
felt. Analogy suggests that whatever is suddenly perceived 
comes in the same way into contact with the mind. Hence 
the simile — " As a stone strikes the body, so a thought 
makes itself perceptible to the mind." This simile may be 
compressed into the full metaphor, thus, " The thought 
struck my mind," or into the implied metaphor, thus, " This 
is a striking thought." In many words that express im- 
material objects the implied method can easily be traced 
through the derivation, as in " excellence," "tribulation," 
"integrity," " spotlessness," etc. 

N.B. The use of metaphor is well illustrated in words that 
describe the effects of sound. Since the sense of hearing seems 
less powerful and less suggestive of words than the senses 
of sight, taste, and touch, the poorer sense is compelled to 
borrow a part of its vocabulary from the richer senses. Thus 



SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 



129 



we talk of " a sweet voice," "a soft whisper," "a sharp 
scream," " a piercing shriek," and the Romans used the ex- 
pression " a dark- coloured voice," 1 where we should say " a 
rough voice." 

81. Metaphor expanded. — As every simile can be com- 
pressed into a metcqjhor, so, conversely, every metaphor can 
be expanded into its simile. The following is the rule for 
expansion. It has been seen above that the simile consists 
of four terms. In the third term of the simile stands the 
subject ("ship," for instance) whose unknown predicated 
relation (" action of ship on water") is to be explained. In 
the first term stands the corresponding subject (" plough") 
whose predicated relation (" action on land") is known. In 
the second term is the known relation. The fourth term is 
the unknown predicated relation which requires explanation. 
Thus— 



the plough 
Known subject. 



turns up the land, 
Known predicate. 



the ship 

Subject whose 

predicate is 

unknown. 



acts on the sea, 

Unknown 
predicate. 



Sometimes the fourth term or unknown predicate may re- 
present something that has received no name in the language. 
Thus, if we take the words of Hamlet, " In my mind's eye," 
the metaphor when expanded would become — 



As 


the body 


is enlightened by the 
eye, 


so 


the mind 

Subject 

whose 


is enlightened by 
a certain percep- 
tive faculty. 

Unknown predi- 




Known subject. 


Known predicate. 




predicate 
is un- 
known. 


cate. 



1 " Voxfusca." 



130 SIMILE AND METAPHOR, 

For several centuries there was no word in the Latin lan- 
guage to describe this " perceptive faculty of the mind." At 
last they coined the word " imaginatio," which appears in 
English as "imagination." This word is found as early as 
Chaucer ; but it is quite conceivable that the English lan- 
guage should, like the Latin, have passed through its best 
period without any single word to describe the " mind's eye." 
The details of the expansion will vary according to the 
point and purpose of the metaphor. In " the ship is the 
plough of the sea," nothing more than the action of the 
plough on the surface of the water is the relation considered ; 
but in " the conversation of Socrates was the plough of the 
Greek mind," the point of the metaphor is the fertilizing 
action of the plough in breaking up the land and making 
it ready to receive the seed. 

82. Personifications. — (1) Men are liable to certain 
feelings, such as shame, fear, repentance, and the like, which 
seem not to be originated by the person, but to come upon 
him from without. For this reason such impersonal feelings 
are in some languages represented by impersonal verbs. 
In Latin these verbs are numerous, "pudet," "piget," 
"taedet," "pcenitet," " libet," etc. In early English 
they were still more numerous, and we retain "it snows," 
"it rains," "it hails," though we have almost, or quite, 
lost " methinks," " meseems," " it shames me," " it pitieth 
me," " it repents me." Men are, however, not contented 
with separating their feelings from their own person ; they 
also feel a desire to account for them. For this purpose 
they have often imagined as the cause of their feelings, Per- 
sonal Beings, such as Hope, Fear, Faith, etc. Hence arose 
what may be called Personification. 



SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 131 

(2) Personification is also used to account for results in 
the outer world of which the causes are not visible. Hence 
the Winds and the Seasons are connected or identified 
with Persons, e.g., Zephyr, Flora, and other natural objects 
which seem to have a kind of life, are personified in the 
same way. Thus, the trees are personified as Dryads. 

(3) Personal Metaphor is the name that should strictly 
be given to a third class of Personifications. A complex 
system, such as the earth, or sea, considered and spoken of 
as a whole, comes easily to be regarded and spoken of as 
possessing a kind of Personality. Thus Wordsworth, in 
the following verses, is on the point of personifying evening 
and the sun : the tendency becomes stronger as he con- 
tinues, and at last the Sea is spoken of as a " Being," and 
actually personified : 

It is a beauteous evening-, calm and free, 
The holy time is quiet as a Nun 
Breathless with adoration ; the broad sun 
Is sinking down in its tranquillity ; 
The gentleness of heaven is on the Sea : 
Listen ! the mighty Being is awake, 
And doth with his eternal motion make 
A sound like thunder — everlastingly. 

Sonnets. 

For the same reason nations and cities, e.g., England, 
France, Rome, Jerusalem, are regarded as Persons possess- 
ing individual characteristics. Lastly, Youth, Pleasure, Old 
Age, appear sometimes to be instances of this kind of 
Personification : 1 

Youth at the prow, and Pleasure at the helm. — Gray. 

1 These cases, however, approximate to those in Classes (1) and (2) above. 
See page 134 to distinguish between Personal Metaphor and Personification. 



132 SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 

Def. Personification is the creation of a fictitious 
Person in order to account for (1) Psychological or 
(2) obscure Physical phenomena. 

83. Personifications of Classes (1) and (2) cannot 
be expanded. — The process of expansion into Simile can 
be performed in the case of a Metaphor, because there is 
implied a comparison. But the process cannot be performed 
in a Personification of class (1) and (2) where no comparison 
is implied. " A frowning mountain " can be expanded, 
because this is a Metaphor implying a comparison between 
a mountain and a person, a gloom and a frown. But " frown- 
ing Wrath " cannot be expanded, because this is a Personifi- 
cation of class (1) implying no comparison. The same 
applies to " the joyful Dryads." 

It is the essence of a Metaphor that it should be literally 
false, as in " a frowning mountain." It is the essence of a 
Personification that, though founded on imagination, it is 
conceived to be literally true, as in " pale Fear," " dark Dis- 
honour." A painter would represent " Death" as "pale," 
and "Dishonour" as "dark," though he would not represent 
a "mountain" with a "frown," or a " ship " as a "plough." 

84. Apparent Exception. — The only case where a 
simile is involved and an expansion is possible is where there 
is an implied Metaphor as well as a Personification. Thus 
the phrase " Mars mows down his foes " is not literally true. 
No painter would represent Mars (though he would Time) 
with a scythe. It is therefore a Metaphor, and, as such, 
capable of expansion thus : 

" As easily as a haymaker mows down the grass, so easily 
does Mars cut down his foes with his sword." 



SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 133 

But the phrase "Mars slays his foes" is, from a poet's 
or painter's point of view, literally true. It is therefore no 
metaphor, and cannot be expanded. 

85. Personification analysed. — Though we cannot 
expand a Personification into a Simile, we can explain the 
details of it. The same analogy which leads men to find a 
correspondence between visible and invisible objects leads 
them also to assume a similarity between cause and effect. 
This belief, which is embodied in the line 

Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat, 

is the basis of all Personification. Since fear makes men 
look pale, and dishonour gives a dark and scowling ex- 
pression to the face, it is inferred that Fear is " pale," 
and Dishonour " dark." And in the same way famine is 
" gaunt ; " Jealousy " green-eyed ; " Faith " pure-eyed ; " 
Hope " white-handed." 

86. Personal Metaphor, natural and convenient. — 

We instinctively wish that visible nature, e.g., mountains, 
winds, trees, rivers, etc., should have a power of sympathising 
with men. This desire begets a kind of poetical belief that 
such a sympathy actually exists. Further, the vocabulary 
expressing the variable moods of man is so much richer than 
that which expresses the changes of nature that the latter 
borrows from the former. For these reasons, even where 
we do not venture on distinct Personification, we often attri- 
bute some of the relations of a Person to inanimate objects, 
and thus the morn is said to laugh, mountains to frown, winds 
to whisper, rivulets to prattle, oaks to sigh. The following 
may be given as a definition of Personal Metaphor. 



134 SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 

Def. A Personal Metaphor is a transference of 
personal relations to an impersonal object for the 
purpose of assisting conception. 

In Personal Metaphors, if we attempt to expand them, 
the first term will always be " a person;'' the second, the 
predicated relation properly belonging to the person, and 
improperly transferred to the impersoDal object ; the third, 
the impersonal object. Thus — 

u As a person frowns, so an overhanging mountain (looks 
gloomy). 

" As a child prattles, so a brook (makes a ceaseless cheerful 
noise)." 

It is not always easy to draw the line between Personifi- 
cation and Personal Metaphor. " The grey morn comes on 
apace," or " the morn steals on the night," may fairly be 
treated as Personal Metaphors. But when pictorial details 
are added, e.g., 

But see the Morn, in russet mantle clad, 
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill, 

Hamlet. 

there seems to be a Personification, which is still more evi- 
dent in 

Not trick'd and frounced as she was wont 
With the Attic boy to hunt. 

II Penseroso. 

87. Pseudo-Metaphors and Hyperbole. — Little or 
nothing can be gained by expanding a Personal Meta- 
phor, A frown or a sigh presupposes & person, and there- 
fore we learn little from stating the relation fully, a as a 
person sighs, so an oak makes a noise." The expression, 
" a sighing oak" may either be treated as a Personification 



SIMILE AND METAPHOE. 135 

(in which case the oak is regarded as a Dryad), or else as an 
exaggerated and terse way of expressing, not a simile, but a 
similarity : thus there is no metaphor in the " fleecy flood" 
applied to " snow" : it is merely a short way of saying that 
" snow" resembles " fleece" in colour. Just so " a sighing 
oak" may be considered as a short exaggeration for "an 
oak the sound of whose leaves resembles sighing." It is 
almost as unnecessary to explain in the one case by saying, 
" as a person sighs," etc., as it would be in the other to 
explain by saying, " as a sheep has fleece," etc. " Fleece" 
presupposes " sheep" little more than "sigh" presupposes 
" person." In some cases the exaggeration is evident, and 
it is clear there is no metaphor. Thus, in 

Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble, 

the meaning is merely " thy voice is as loud and terrible as 
thunder." Again, 

Every man's conscience is a thousand swords 
To fight against that bloody homicide. 

Richard III. 
Or, 

But he, poor soul, by your first order died, 
And that a winged Mercury did bear ; 
Some tardy cripple bore the countermand, 
That came too lag to see him buried. 

lb. 

In the last passage one messenger is said to be as swift as 
Mercury, and the other as slow as a cripple. This is Hyper- 
bole, and not Metaphor. For there is no similarity of rela- 
tions; it is an exaggeration of degree. 

Sometimes it is not easy to see whether there is a 
Metaphor or not. Take an instance : " The earth drank 
up his blood." Now here there is either a very strong Per- 



136 SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 

sonification, or else there is only the slightest possible 
Metaphor, and the context must determine for us which is 
the case. Thus, if the context described Gessler dying on 
the land that he had oppressed, Switzerland might be 
represented as vindictively draining the life-blood of her 
oppressor, and this might be a distinct and vivid Personi- 
fication. But in most cases the Personification would be 
weak or non-existent, and the expression would be no more 
than a way of saying that the blood oozed into the earth 
almost as rapidly as water disappears when drunk up by 
man or beast. There would be little more Metaphor in 
this than in saying " a sponge imbibes water." 

88. Confusions of Similarity. — There is no Metaphor 
in saying that " a man has a cold or warm heart," or " a clear 
head," and in many similar expressions. Easily distinguish- 
able from genuine metaphors (such as "a stiff-necked gene- 
ration"), these pseudo-metaphors are found in all languages, 
and they indicate an ancient belief that certain moral qualities 
are caused by or identical with certain qualities of the bodily 
organs. We still retain many of these old expressions, and 
use them in a confused manner, with a certain feeling that 
there must be a similarity between cause and effect. Thus 
the paleness of cowardice seemed naturally to spring from 
" a white liver ; ' n " clear reasoning" seems still the natural 
product of a "clear brain;" and, since warmth is genial 
and fostering, what can be a more natural explanation of a 
man whose conduct is kind and genial than to say that "lie 
has a warm heart " ? So we say of a satirist that " his pen 



1 Go prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, 
Thou lily-liver d boy. 

Macbeth. 



SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 137 

is steeped in gall." An instance of this natural confusion is 
found in Bichard III.'s exhortation to the murderers — 

Your eyes drop mill-stones when fools' eyes drop tears. 

Here the murderers are instructed to be hard : and nothing 
can be more natural than the hyperbole which asserts that 
the conduct of hard men bears the impress of hardness, and 
that even their tears are of stone. 

89. Good and bad Metaphors. — There are certain 
laws regulating the formation and employment of Metaphors 
which should be borne in mind. 

(1.) A Metaphor must not be used unless it is needed for 
explanation or vividness, or to throw light upon the thought of 
the speaker. Thus the speech of the Gardener in Richard II., 

Go then, and like an executioner 

Cut off the heads of our fast-growing sprays, etc., 

is inappropriate to the character of the speaker, and conveys 
an allusion instead of an explanation. It illustrates what is 
familiar by what is unfamiliar, and can only be justified by 
the fact that the gardener is thinking of the disordered con- 
dition of the kingdom of England, and the necessity of a 
powerful king to repress unruly subjects. 

(2.) A Metaphor must not enter too much into detail: for 
every additional detail increases the improbability that the 
correspondence of the whole comparison can be sustained. 
Thus, if King Richard (Richard II.) had been content, 
while musing on the manner in which he could count time 
by his sighs, to say — 

For now hath Time made me his numbering clock. 



138 SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 

there would have been little or no offence against taste. But 
when he continue.: — 

My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar 

Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch, 

Whereto my finger, like a dial's point, 

Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears. 

Now, sir, the sound that tells what hour it is 

Are clamorous groans which strike upon my heart, 

Which is the bell, — 

we have an excess of detail which is only justified because it 
illustrates the character of one who is always " studying to 
compare," 1 and " hammering out" unnatural comparisons. 

Sometimes a single word in a Metaphor will suggest a 
minute detail far more effectively than a whole sentence would 
describe it. Take the word liveries in the following : 

Right against the Eastern gate, 
Where the great sun begins his state, 
Robed in flames and amber bright, 
The clouds in thousand liveries dight ; 

where this word suggests a comparison between the colours 
which the sun bestows upon the attendant clouds and the 
liveries of servants bearing the cognizance of their lord. The 
morning sun, surrounded by the clouds that reflect his rays, 
is compared to a great king or lord issuing from his palace 
gate, and accompanied by his attendants, who are clothed in 
the liveries that he has given them. 

The comical effect produced by excessively minute ela- 

1 I have been studying how I may compare 
This prison where I live unto the world ; 

***** 

I cannot do it; yet 111 hammer it out. 

Richard II. 






SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 139 

boration of a metaphor is well illustrated by the following 
parody : 

Can the quick current of a patriot heart 
Thus stagnate in a cold and weedy converse, 
Or freeze in tideless inactivity ? 
No ! rather let the fountain of your valour 
Spring through each narrow stream of enterprise, 
Each petty channel of conducive daring, 
Till the full torrent of your foaming wrath 
O'erwhelm the flats of sunk hostility ! 

The Critic. 

(3.) A Metaphor must not be far -fetched, nor dwell upon the 
details of a disgusting picture : 

Here lay Duncan, 
His silver skin laced with his golden blood ; 

there the murderers, 

Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers 
Unmannerly breech' d icith gore, 

Macbeth. 

There is but little, and that far-fetched, similarity between 
gold lace and blood, or between bloody daggers and breech 1 d 
legs. The slightness of the similarity, recalling the greatness 
of the dissimilarity, disgusts us with the attempted com- 
parison. Language so forced is only appropriate in the 
mouth of a conscious murderer dissembling guilt. 

Of course the same metaphors may be natural in one con- 
text and far-fetched in another. For instance, since a tree 
inhales and exhales certain gases through the medium of its 
leaves, " the leaves are the lungs of a tree " may be a suitable 
metaphor in a treatise on natural science, but a poet would 
not write — 

Spring returns, furnishing the trees with their green lungs. 



140 SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 

Again, for the introspective Hamlet, the " mind's eye" is a 
very appropriate and beautiful metaphor ; and Menenius 
Agrippa, wrangling with a cobbler, may appropriately call 
the latter — 

You, the great toe of this assembly. 

Even Hamlet, in his lighter mood, may say that his friends 
in their moderate prosperity, are " Neither the soles of For- 
tune's feet, nor the button on her cap," but scarcely any 
context could justify such a metaphor as " the mind's foot,'' 
or "the mind's toe." 

(4.) Two Metaphors must not he confused together, particu- 
larly if the action of the one is inconsistent with the action of 
the other. 

It may be pardonable to surround, as it were, one meta- 
phor with another. Thus, fear may be compared to an ague- 
fit, and an ague-fit passing away may be compared to the 
overblowing of a storm. Hence, " This ague-fit of fear is 
overblown" (Richard II.) is justifiable. But 

Was the hope drunk 
Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since ? 

Macbeth. 

is, apart from the context, objectionable ; for it makes Hope 
a person and a dress in the same breath. It may, however, 
probably be justified on the supposition that Lady Macbeth 
is playing on her husband's previous expression — 

I have bought 
Golden opinions from all sorts of people, 
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, 
Not cast aside so soon. 



SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 141 

(5.) A Metaphor must be ivholly false, and must not combine 
truth w i th fa Iseh ood. 

" A king is the pilot of the state," is a good metaphor. 
" A careful captain is the pilot of his ship," is a bad one. 
You may speak of " assailing with the pen," but scarcely 
(unless with a touch of humorous irony) of " blackening a 
spotless character with his ink." So 

Ere my tongue 
Shall wound mine honour with such feeble wrong, 
Or sound so base a parle, 

Richard II. 

is objectionable. The tongue, though it cannot " wound," 
can touch. Honour can be wounded intangibly by " slander's 
venom'd spear" [Richard II.) ; but, in a metaphor, not so 
well by the tangible tongue. " Words " would not have 
been open to objection, for " his words wounded my feelings " 
suggests nothing literally true. The same objection applies 
to 

Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons 
Shall ill-become the flower of England's face, 
Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace 
To scarlet indignation, and bedew 
Her pastures' grass with faithful English blood. 

Richard II. 

If England is to be personified, it is England's blood, not the 
blood of ten thousand mothers, which will stain her face. 
There is also a confusion between the blood which mantles 
in a blush and which is shed ; and, in the last line, instead 
of " England's face," we come down to the literal " pastures' 
grass." 

90. Personifications must be regulated by the laws of 



142 SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 

personality. No other rule can be laid down. But exaggera- 
tions like the following must be avoided : 

Comets, importing change of times and states, 

Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky, 

And with them scourge the bad revolting stars. 

1. Henry VI. 

The Furies may be supposed to scourge their prostrate vic- 
tims with their snaky hair, and comets have been before 
now regarded as scourges in the hand of God. But the 
liveliest fancy would be tasked to imagine the stars in re- 
volt, and scourged back into obedience by the crystal hair of 
comets. 






THIRD PART, 



CHAPTER I. 

METKE. 

The arrangement of words has two objects, (1) the convey- 
ing of the sense, (2) the giving of pleasure to the ear. 

One of the principal modes of giving pleasure by the ar- 
rangement of words is Rhythm. 

9 1. Rhythm, when appropriate. — Rhythm is a prin- 
ciple of proportion introduced into language. 

Conversation being necessarily irregular, abrupt, and liable 
to interruption, has no leisure for rhythm. Proportion, even 
if introduced into conversation, might be broken at any 
moment. 

Scientific and philosophic writing does not require rhythm, 
The reader's mind being in a state of tension, and the writer's 
main object being great precision, rhythm appears unneces- 
sary and impertinent. The logical sequence of argument 
dictates the arrangement of the words, and ought not to be 
interfered with by any consideration of pleasure. 

But when we talk or write continuously about any subject 
that appeals to the passions, we gratify a natural instinct 
by falling into a certain regularity. Both the voice and the 
arrangement of the words fall under this regular influence : 



144 METRE. 

the voice is modulated, and the words are regulated in a 
kind of flow called rhythm. Without rhythm, the expres- 
sion of passion becomes spasmodic and painful, like the 
sobbing of a child. Rhythm averts this pain by giving a 
sense of order controlling and directing passion. Hence 
rhythm is in place wherever speech is impassioned, and 
intended at the same time to be pleasurable : and impas- 
sioned speech without rhythm is, when long continued, un- 
pleasing. 

The regularity of rhythm is not so great that it can be 
reduced to a law. When it can be reduced to a law, it 
loses the name of rhythm, and becomes metre. 

92. Metre, when appropriate. — When a subject ex- 
cites the feelings very strongly, or when a subject is re- 
garded in a very pleasurable manner, the feelings often most 
naturally and pleasurably express themselves in song. Not 
that we do sing in moments of excessive sorrow, or plea- 
surable excitement ; often we have not sufficient self-control, 
or sufficient knowledge of music, to do so. But there is a 
tendency (varying, as to intensity, in different nations and 
in different individuals) to song, as being the most natural 
and pleasurable expression of very strong feeling. Xow 
just as the voice rises from (a) conversational non-modula- 
tion to (b) rhetorical modulation, and from modulation to (c) 
singing, so the arrangement of words rises from (a') conver- 
sational non-arrangement to (U) rhetorical rhythm, and from 
rhythm to {(•/) metre. 

The highest passion of all expresses itself, as regards 
the sound of the voice, in a shriek or scream, and as regards 
the arrangement of words, in the spasmodic non-arrange- 
ment of uncontrolled and unrhythmical passion. Un- 



METRE. 145 

metrical ejaculations are allowable in metre (very often 
standing by themselves outside the metre), but the un- 
rhythmical expression of intense passion is, when prolonged, 
extremely painful, producing pain untempered by any feeling 
of artistic pleasure. It is therefore rarely admitted. An 
exception is the speech, if it can be so called, of Othello 
(Act iv. Sc. 1. 1. 38), just before his fit of epilepsy. 

Though metre is peculiarly fitted for the pleasurable ex- 
pression of high passion, it can be applied also to subjects 
where there is little or no passion, provided that the plea- 
surable arrangement of words is in place. 

Composition which has only rhythm, or not even that, is 
called prose ; composition which has metre is called poetry. 

93, Prose and Poetry in Shakspeare serve, as a 
rule, for distinct purposes. Prose is used in the dialogue 
between servants, and in jest, and in light conversation. 
For instance, Falstaff always speaks in prose, even in scenes 
where the other characters speak verse. Again, in " Julius 
Caesar," Act i. Sc. 2, Casca speaks prose when Brutus and 
Cassius speak in verse. Prose is used for letters, and on 
other occasions, where it is desirable to give a matter-of- 
fact effect. There is rhythm, but not metre, in the following 
impassioned letter : 

Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried, my creditors grow cruel, my 
estate is very low, my bond to the Jew is forfeit ; and since in paying it, it is 
impossible I should live, all debts are cleared between you and I, if I might 
but see you at my death. Notwithstanding, use your pleasure : if your love 
do not persuade you to come, let not my letter. — Merchant of Venice. 

Often a scene begins with prose in a conversational tone, v 
and rises to verse as the feelings become more passionate. 
Thus the scene of the bargain, Merchant of Venice, Act i. 
Sc. 3, begins 

10 



146 METRE. 

Shy. Three thousand ducats ; well. 
Bass. Ay, sir, for three months ; 

and does not become verse till the entrance of Antonio 
develops passion in Shylock : 

Shy. Who is he comes here ? 

Bass. This is Signor Antonio. 

Shy. {aside."] How like a fawning publican he looks. 

A similar change occurs in the household scene in " Corio- 
lanus," Act i. Sc. 3, where the scene begins with prose, then 
passes into verse, and finally returns to prose. Another 
instance where verse begins and prose follows is in " The 
Two Gentlemen of Verona," Act i. Sc. 1. The student should 
note other instances, and, where it is possible to do so, 
should trace the change of thought corresponding to the 
change of language. 

One remarkable instance where prose is used instead of 
verse is in the speech of Brutus to the populace after the 
murder of Cassar. Elsewhere Brutus always speaks verse ; 
but in addressing the people, he refuses to ' appeal to their 
feelings, and affects a studiously cold and unimpassioned 
style. His speech serves in this respect as a useful foil to 
Antony's highly impassioned harangue. But even in this 
studiously frigid speech it is noticeable how, as soon as the 
speaker begins to appeal to the feelings of the audience, he 
approaches and finally falls into metre : 

As Csesar loved me, I weep for him : 

As he was fortunate, I rejoice at it : 

As he was valiant, I honour liim : 

But, as lie was ambitious, I slew him. 

There is teen for his love ; joy for his fortune ; 

Honour for his valour ; and death for his ambition. 



METEE. 147 

So far we have merely rhythm, though rhythm on the 
brink of metre : now comes the appeal to the feelings, and 
after one line that is all but metre, the rhythm becomes 
absolute metre : 

Who is here so base that would ( ) be a bondman ? 

If any, speak ; for him have I offended. 

Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman ? 

If any, speak ; for him have I offended. 

Who is here so vile that will not love his country ? 

If any, speak; for him have I offended. 

I pause for a reply. 
AIL None, Brutus, none. 

Brutus. Then none have I offended. 

94. Didactic Poetry. — Although prose seems to us the 
most natural style, and poetry might be supposed to be 
an invention of civilized and ingenious nations, the truth 
is that poetry is earlier and more universal than prose. 
So strong was the natural inclination to give form and some 
kind of regularity to every " set form" 1 of words, that written 
composition assumed at once a metrical form, and prose is 
rather the after-thought of a more advanced civilization. 
The earliest philosophers hampered themselves with metre, 
and their example has been followed in modern times by 
a doubtful style, didactic (or teaching) poetry, of which 
the most famous example in English literature is Pope's 
" Essay on Man." It is only, however, when the subject 
requires very precise reasoning, or deals with very dry 
abstractions, that any objection can be made to this style. 
A subject which excites the feelings will always admit 
of high rhythm and of metre so long as it is not handled 
too closely. There is a kind of prose composition which is 

1 Compare the Latin " carmen." 



148 METRE. 

essentially didactic, and yet is highly rhythmical ; and there 
is a kind of didactic poetry which is to be regarded as the 
highest exaltation of this style, e.g., many poems of Words- 
worth, and some parts of the " Essay on Man." A specimen 
of the false didactic style is Darwin's " Loves of the Plants," 
which should be compared with the burlesque of it in Can- 
ning and Frere's " Loves of the Triangles." 

95. Language Metrical and Unmetrieal. — As an 

example of the difference between metrical and unmetrieal 
language, compare 

Achilles' wrath to Greece the direful spring 

with 

The wrath of Achilles, the spring direful to Greece. 

The former gives more pleasure to the ear than the latter, by 
its superior regularity. In the former the syllables are so 
arranged that the first is to the second as the third to the 
fourth and the fifth to the sixth, etc. In the latter no law 
can be discovered. It is the regularity itself which gives 
pleasure. Of what kind the regularity may be is of less 
importance, provided that it be readily perceptible. In early 
English poetry we find a regularity of a different sort, a 
regular recurrence in the first letters of certain accented 
syllables : 

iucifer with Zegions || Zearned it in | heaven. 

And in modern English poetry there is commonly another 
regularity by the side of the regularity in accent. Syllables 
terminating with the same letters are introduced at regular 
distances. These syllables are said to rhyme, 

Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring 
Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing. 



METRE. 149 

Here the tenth and twentieth syllables terminate in the same 
letters, or rhyme. We proceed, then, to examine the dif- 
ferent kinds of metre, 

96. Metre, different kinds of. — The regularity on 
which Metre, as we have just said, depends, may affect 
(a) syllables ; (b) small combinations of syllables, called feet; 
(c) combinations of feet, called lines or verses ; (d) combina- 
tions of verses, called couplets, stanzas, etc. 

i. [a) Syllables may be merely counted, and not classified 
at all. 

ii. (a) Syllables, e.g., strives, in, might be classified accord- 
ing to the time necessary to pronounce them, i.e., their 
quantity. This has never been the English system. 

iii. (a) Syllables, e.g., the first in Lucifer and Z^gion, may 
be classified according to their initial letter, i.e., by allitera- 
tion — the ancient English system. 

iv. (a) Syllables, e.g., the first and second in happy, may 
be classified according as they are pronounced, more (')or 
less ( N ), loudly than the syllables next to them, i.e., accord- 
ing to accent. 

v. (a) Syllables, e.g., hate and mate, may be classified ac- 
cording as they have the same vowel sound (in English the 
vowel sound has to be followed by the same, and preceded 
by a different, consonantal sound, but this is not necessary 
in Spanish), i.e., according to rhyme. 

The smallest recurring combination of syllables is called (b) 
a Foot. Feet might depend on any of the five classifications 
of syllables mentioned above. The following is an example 
oifeet depending on classification (iv.), i.e., accent. 

Zephyr | with Aur)6ra | playing. 

Milton. 



150 METRE. 

Here an accented syllable is followed by an unaccented one, 
and this recurring combination is a foot. The various kinds 
of feet will be enumerated in the next paragraph. 

A combination of feet (mostly the same feet) for metrical 
purposes is called (c) a verse, 1 e.g., the line quoted above from 
Milton. A combination of verses is called by many different 
names, according to the number of verses in the combina- 
tion, or according to the recurrence of rhymes. The most 
common names are (d) couplet and stanza. A couplet consists 
of two verses, a stanza 1 of a variable number, but each stanza 
in the same poem has generally the same number of verses. 

Examples of the different kinds of metre, based upon the 
five classifications mentioned above, are : 

i. The French Alexandrine (which adds rhyme), owing 
to the want of marked accents in French words, approximates 
to this. 

ii. The Greek and Latin poetry. 

iii. Early English Alliterative poetry (which, however, 
counts accents). 

iv. Blank verse. 

v. Doggrel, i.e., when rhyme is used without regard to 
the number of accents. 

Modern English poetry is based upon (iv.) and (v.), {.*., 
upon accent and rhyme, apart or conjoined; but (ii.) quantity 
and (iii.) alliteration, though secondary, yet exercise a consi- 
derable influence ; and (i.) the reckoning of the mere number 
of syllables imposes certain restrictions. 

97. Names of Feet. — The following names of feet, or 
measures, are most of them connected with the metres of 

1 Sometimes line is used for verse, and verse for stanza, especially in 
hymns. 



METEE. 151 

Greek and Latin poetry, where a foot was estimated by- 
quantity, and not by accent. It will be easily borne in mind 
that in English poetry, which has rules quite uninfluenced 
by quantity, the names of feet denote groups of accented 
and non-accented syllables, without reference to quantity. 

I. The Monosyllabic Foot, — This is very rare. Coleridge, 
in his poem of " Christabel," where, as he says, " in each 
line the accents will be found to be only four," may perhaps 
have intended 

What | sees | she | there ? 

to be pronounced slowly as a verse of four monosyllabic 
feet, and so of the verse describing the hooting of the owl : 

Tu— whit— tu— whoo. 

In Cowper's " Loss of the Royal George," each verse has 
three accents, which makes it probable that we should read 
the italicised syllables as monosyllabic feet in 

Toll \for\ the brave. 

Weigh | the vess|el tip. 

In Chaucer, monosyllabic feet are not uncommon as an 
irregular first foot in a disyllabic metre. They are also 
common in Shakspeare : 

Now | it shin | eth, now | it rain | eth fast. 

Chaucer. 

Stay, | the king | hath thrown | his ward | er down. 

Shakspeare. 

II. Disyllabic Feet. — (An unaccented syllable is denoted 

by v 



152 METRE. 

(1) The accented syllable may come first. Such a foot 
may be called the first disyllabic, but it is usually called a 
trochee — 

Comfort Trochee, or 1st disyllabic. 

(2) The accented syllable may come second — 

Agree Iambic, or 2nd disyllabic. 

III. Trisyllabic feet. 

(1). The accented syllable may come first — 

Frequently Dactyl, or 1st trisyllabic. 

(2). The accented syllable may come second. This foot 
is perhaps not required in English poetry. 

Keceiving Amphibrach, or 2nd trisyllabic. 

(3). The accented syllable may come third. 

Colonnade Anapaest, or 3rd trisyllabic. 

98. Accent means a loud stress of the voice. Every 
English polysyllable has at least one syllable more loudly 
pronounced than the syllable or syllables next to it, e.g., the 
first in servile, the second in servility. Sometimes two or 
more accents are distinctly heard, as in incompatibility, 
where there are three, viz., on the first, third, and fifth 
syllables. 

Accent in Metre, if it fall on any syllable in a word, 
must fall on the principal Word- accent. The following is 
intended to be faulty : 

But wonder on, till truth make all things plain, 
This beauteous lady Thisby is certain. 

Midsummer Night's Dream, v. 1. 131. 

Accent in Metre may fall on syllables that have not a 
distinct Word-accent. The following rules are subject to no 
exceptions but those which spring from contractions in pro- 



METRE. 153 

nunciation.i The first applies to Monosyllables as well as 
to Polysyllables : 

(1) We can never have three consecutive 

clearly pronounced Syllables without a 
Metrical Accent. 

(2) We cannot have two consecutive Syllables 
in the same word Metrically Accented. 

(3) In Polysyllables, Metrical Accent, if it 
falls on more than one Syllable, falls on 
alternate Syllables, 

Thus we cannot have solitary, interesting. This rule is 
subject to many exceptions from slurring or contraction, e.g., 
ted(i)ousness. See 114. 

99. Emphasis is a stress laid in speaking on mono- 
syllables, or on the accented syllables of polysyllables, for 
the purpose of calling attention to the meaning. Emphasis 
often means "this and nothing else," e.g., "He did it," i.e., 
"He and no one else." 

In good poetry an emphatic monosyllable will generally 
receive a metrical accent. But there are exceptions to this 
rule which will be given hereafter. See 101, ii., where it is 
also shown that unemphatic syllables sometimes receive the 
metrical accent. 

Meanwhile let it be noted distinctly that when accent in 
metre is mentioned hereafter, it is to be remembered that 
all accented syllables are not equally emphatic (which 
would produce an unpleasant monotony both in conversation 
and metre), but only that they are emphatic relative to the 
syllables in the same foot. 

1 It will be understood that we are speaking of ordinary English poetry 
not of the early English alliterative poems. 



154 METRE. 

100. Accent favours Disyllabic Metre. — This is evi- 
dent from a glance at one of the examples in Paragraph 98. 
If servile made servility, it would suit trisyllabic metre very- 
well, but could never be used as two trochees, or as two 
iambs. Thus the word solitary is easily admitted in 

Thy foll|y, or | with soljitarly hand ; 

Milton, 
whereas we could not have 

All in a I fishing-boat | out on the | sea, 
Hopeless and | helpless and | solitary. 

Indeed, words of four syllables, with the principal accent 
on the first syllable, 1 cannot be used in anapaestic metre, 
for the use would enforce disregard of Rule (3) above. 
Hence words of more than three syllables are of rare 
occurrence in the best examples of this metre, e.g., in 
Browning's " Good News from Ghent," and in Cowper's 
" Poplars." 

101. Accent in Trisyllables and Monosyllables. — 

(i.) Trisyllables. — Although there is often little or no more 
accent on the third than on the second syllable of a trisyllable, 
e.g., urgency, yet the system of accentuation described in 
Paragraph 98 is consistently carried out, even in trisyllables, 
for metrical purposes. Tivo accents cannot come together in 
the same word ; therefore we cannot have urgency ; again, 
three unaccented syllables cannot come together ; and therefore 
if urgency is followed in metre by an unaccented syllable, 
there must be an accent on the y. 

In trisyllabic metre a dactyl, e.g., merrily, would be fol- 
lowed by an accented syllable : 

J e.g., Interesting. 



METEE. 155 

Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, 

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough ; 

Tlie Tempest. 

and therefore the poetic accent on -y would not be required. 
But in disyllabic metre, the accent on -y is necessary if the 
word is fully pronounced, as in 

Full merrily the humble bee doth sing. 

Troilus and Cressida. 

The same accent is allowed in disyllabic metre when the 
word comes at the end of the line : 

Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily. 

Julius Ccesar. 

(ii.) Monosyllables. — Again the same rule holds good. All 
monosyllables are, in themselves, for the purposes of metre, 
neutral, and can be used either with or without the Metrical 
Accent. (See 112.) But since three unaccented syllables 
cannot come together, any monosyllable, however unemphatic, 
that comes betiveen two unaccented monosyllables, must receive 
a Metrical Accent in disyllabic metre. 

Examples are very common in all poets : 

That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace. 

Shakspeare. 

But fooPd by hope, men favour the deceit. 

Dryden. 

Oh, weep for Adona^s. The quick dreams. 

Shelley. 

Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain. 

Byron. 

O'er the four rivers the first roses blew. 

Tennyson. 

The mother of manendi, what time his pride. 

Milton, 



156 METRE. 

With joy and love triumphing * and fair truth. 

Milton." 

The examples above quoted bring out another rule : when 
two emphatic monosyllables come together, and one of them 
receives the metrical accent, the other may be without the 
metrical accent. Thus quick, rent, first, man, fair, in the 
above examples are all emphatic, more emphatic certainly 
than the, and, a, which receive the metrical accent ; but, 
since quick precedes a metrically accented monosyllable, quick 
is allowed to remain unaccented. 

It will be noticed that in all these instances an unemphatic 
accent is folloived by an emphatic non-accented syllable. This 
sequence, so common in our best poets, seems not to be 
mere accident. The lightness of the unemphatic accent 
is perhaps compensated by the length and emphasis of the 
following unaccented syllable. 

By a rule similar to the above, one or two emphatic syl- 
lables in trisyllabic metre are left unaccented after a Metrical 
Accent : 

The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves. 

Cowper. 2 

102. Pope's Use of the Unemphatic Accent.— The 

accent falls more easily on an unemphatic monosyllable 
when the syllable preceding it is still less emphatic. Now 
when the last syllable of a polysyllable is unaccented, it is 
likely to be less emphatic than a monosyllable. For example, 
the -ing in trembling and the -ure in pleasure are less emphatic 
than you, he, do, of, to, etc. Hence, where the metre is 
strict, as in Pope, the unemphatic accent on a monosyllable 
follows most pleasingly after a polysyllable. Thus the foot 

1 Milton thus accents the word, not triumphing. 
3 See page 212, Note. 



METRE. 157 

is cut into two parts belonging to different words. This 
cutting is called ccesura : and cmsura is very common in Pope 
before an unemphatic accent on a monosyllable : 

That secret to each fool, that he's an ass. 

Pope. 

Make satire a lampoon, and fiction lie. 

lb. 

Smit with the mighty pleasure to be seen. 

lb. 

Soon as thy letters trembly I unclose. 

lb. 

I view my crime, but kindZe tit the view. 

lb. 

'Tis sure the hardest science to forget. 

lb. 

Often, though a monosyllable precedes, it is so closely 
connected with some other word as really to form a kind 
of compound polysyllable : 

Offend-her, and she knows not to forgive ; 
Oblige-her } and she'll hate you while you live. 

Pope. 

Where there is no ccesura, the accent often begins the 
verse in Pope : 

(a) Love, free as air, at sight of human ties, 
Spreads his light wings and in a moment flies. 

Pope. 

(b) Pant on thy lip, and to thy heart be pressed. 

(c) Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door. 

lb. 

(d) Health to himself, and to his infants bread. 

lb. 



158 METRE. 

(e) Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs. 

Pope, 

We may safely assert that Pope would not have written 
such a line as 

The lone couch of his everlasting sleep. 

Shelley. 

103. Dubious Monosyllabic Accent.— In the five cases 
last quoted, the accent of the monosyllable is doubtful, 
for it is uncertain whether and to, at a, and as are iambics or 
trochees. It will be seen (129, 138) that in disyllabic metre 
a trochee can be substituted for an iamb, not only at the 
beginning of a verse, but also in the middle of the verse 
after a pause : 

Alike my scorn, if he succeed or fail, 
Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail. 

Pope. 

The use of the trochee in the middle of the verse is not 
so common in Pope as in Shakspeare and Milton : but as 
all the five lines above quoted 1 begin unquestionably with a 
trochee, it seems as though the initial trochee in the examples 
of the last paragraph was intended to prepare the way for a 
following trochee. On that supposition the accent will be 
placed on the first syllable in each of the fiwo examples, <v/., 
and to, not and t6. 

104. The Third Accent often unemphatic in Pope. 

— Partly the recurrence of the unemphatic accent in the same 
position, and partly the almost invariable ccesura, give to 
many passages in Pope the effect of a metre altogether dis- 
tinct from that of other writers : 

i Paragraph 102(c), {&), (*),(<*),(«). 



METRE. 159 

Foot. 

2 How happy is the blameless vestal's lot, 

3 The world forgetting, by the world forgot. 
3 Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, 

3 Each prayer accepted and each wish resigned ; 

Labour and rest that equal periods keep ; 
3 Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep. 

3 Grace shines around- her with serenest beams, 

And whispering angels prompt her golden dreams. 

Pope. 

105. The use of Unemphatic Accents is to break 
the monotony which would beset a long continuous poem in 
the five-accent iambic metre, written with the regular in- 
cisiveness which characterizes the rhyming couplet. Hence 
Mr. Morris, who uses the rhyming couplet in his " Life and 
Death of Jason," and in some other poems, avoiding the usual 
effect of the metre, introduces the unemphatic accent very 
freely, together with long and emphatic unaccented mono- 
syllables : 

(a) Upon the floor the fresh-plucked roses fall. 

(&) In hot chase of the honey-loving beast. 

(c) That in white cliffs rose up on the right hand. 



So also 



The lone couch of his everlasting sleep. 

Shelley. 1 



106. Emphatic Accents. — It is impossible to lay down 
any rule as to the number of emphatic accents in a verse; 
but it is important that in reading we should allow emphasis 
as well as accent to exert its influence ; otherwise the verse 
becomes intolerably monotonous. Occasionally we meet with 
a line where all the accents seem nearly on a par, as regards 
the weight of emphasis attaching to each. 

1 It may be a question whether some of these iambs should not be scanned 
as trochees. See 103, 129, 138. 



160 METEE. 

But look, the morn in russet mantle clad, 
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill. 

Hamlet, 

But such lines are few in dramatic poetry. The mere pre- 
sence of words with two metrical accents, as " honourable " 
necessitates some inequality of emphasis. In the rhyming 
couplet we may expect to find the full number of emphatic 
accents more frequently, for a very obvious reason. The 
rhyming couplet tends to antithesis, and antithesis involves 
emphasis. Four emphatic antithetical accents with one 
unemphatic accent on some copulative word are very com- 
mon, but not unfrequently a line has five emphatic accents. 

Who sees with equal eye, as Lord of all, 
4 A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, 

4 Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, 

5 And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 

Pope. 

Probably " burst" is somewhat less emphatic than the 
other accented syllables. Indeed, as there are many dif- 
ferent degrees of emphasis, it would be necessary, in strict 
correctness, to denote the difference of accent by more than 
two different signs. Thus : 

The evil that men do lives after them, 
The good is oft interred with their bones. 

Julius Caesar. 

Such distinctions, however, are a matter of taste, and 
different readers would render the lines somewhat differently. 
Probably the last line in the following couplet would be 
admitted by all to have five emphatic accents : 

Should at my feet the world's great master fall, 
Himself, his throne, his world, I'd scorn 'cm all. 

Pope. 



METRE. 161 

So also the following : 

How often hope, despair, rese'nt, regret. 

Pope. 

Renounce my love, my life, myself, and you. 

lb. 

In the following, the unaccented syllables are, many of 

them, as emphatic as the accented : 

Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death. 

Milton. 

107. The number of unaccented syllables in each 
foot is not invariable, even in the same metre. Strictly, 
there should be (a) one unaccented syllable in each foot of 
disyllabic metre, and (b) in each foot of trisyllabic metre, 
two. 

(b) The latter limit (see 98) is never exceeded ; three un- 
accented syllables cannot be found together in any English 
metre, if they are all fully pronounced. But sometimes we 
have an iamb for an anapaest in trisyllabic metre, i.e., one 
instead of two unaccented syllables. Thus : 

The p6p\lars are felled, j farewell | to the shade. 

Coivper. 

(a) In disyllabic metre we have, 

i. Monosyllabic feet for disyllabic ; but this is rare, 
ii. Trisyllabic feet for disyllabic : 

The multitudinous sea incarnadine. 

Macbeth,, 

This is much more common, but it is not practised 
indiscriminately. Eules regulating the practice will be 
mentioned hereafter. See 94. This use of trisyllabic feet 
adds much to the variety and expressiveness of the disyl- 

11 



162 METRE. 

labic metre. It is rejected by the symmetry of epigram, but 
is admirably adapted for dramatic verse. 

The right of ignoring the number of syllables in a verse, 
provided that the number of accents is complete, is 
enunciated and claimed by Coleridge in the preface to 
" Christabel." His words are these: "The metre is founded 
on a new principle, that of counting in each line the accents, 
not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven 
to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to 
be only four." Hence it appears that even in the fullest 
adoption of the license of extra syllables, Coleridge never 
exceeds twelve syllables for four accents, i.e., three syllables 
to an accent, which is the rule laid down above. A fourth 
syllable cannot be inserted unless it is completely suppressed 
in pronunciation. Thus, Coleridge could not have written 
and 'pronounced "it is " for " 'tis," nor could he have in- 
serted an unemphatic monosyllable, e.g., " long," before 
" night," as in the following line : 

It is the mid|dle of the long night | by yonder cast|le clock. 

This would have been intolerable. The metre would have 
degenerated into rhythm, and the poetry into prose. It 
should be added that the principle here enunciated by 
Coleridge as " new," is very old ; upon it is based the allite- 
rative poetry of early English, as will be seen hereafter. 

108. The Prevalent Foot. — Disyllabic metre may con- 
tain trisyllabic feet, and vice versa. Hence we cannot always 
at once determine whether a metre is intended to be trisyllabic 
or disyllabic. The metre is determined by the prevalent foot, 
and that cannot always be ascertained till a few lines have 
been read. Thus in Michael Drayton's " Agincourt " we 



METRE. 163 

might read the first three lines, and not perceive the metre 
till the fourth : 

Fair stood the wind for France, 
When we our sails advance, 
Nor now to prove our chance, 
Longer will tarry. 

Here it might naturally be supposed, from the first three 
lines, that the second-disyllabic metre with three accents 
was intended; but the fourth line, which is clearly trisyllabic, 
makes it doubtful whether the first three lines should not be 
treated as trisyllabic with two accents : 

Fair stood the | wind for France. 

The metre seems to be the same as 

Speak ! speak ! thou | fearful guest, 
Who with thy | hollow breast 
Still in rude | armour drest, 

Comest to | daunt me. 

Longfellow. 

Cannon to right of them, 
Cannon to left of them, 
Cannon in front of them, 
Volleyed and thundered. 

Tennyson. 

Again, in Cowper's beautiful trisyllabic poem, " The Poplar 
Field," it would be possible, but for the prevalence of the tri- 
syllabic foot, to scan the following line disyllabically, using 
the ordinary dramatic license of contraction : 

And now | i' th' grass | behold | they're laid. 

But the prevalence of the trisyllabic foot makes it obvious that 
we must scan, — 

And now | in the grass | behold | they are laid. 



164 METRE. 

109. Rhyme. — Syllables are said to rhyme when they are 
identical from the vowel to the end. Syllables altogether 
identical do not rhyme, nor syllables in which the vowel is 
different; e.g., confine and define do not rhyme, nor do 
height and straight, though they have four letters identical, 
but sky and try rhyme, though they have only one. Prac- 
tically all single rhymes (see 111) must be accented. Hence 
though ling rhymes with king, yet ling in ruling is not used 
to rhyme with king in walking. 

But as rhyme is intended to gratify the ear, not the eye, 
when words are pronounced in one way and spelt in another, 
their rhymes are the words which correspond with them in 
pronunciation, not in spelling. Thus iceight does not rhyme 
with height, and does rhyme with straight, wait, and date. 
This rule is broken in the following : 

Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray, 
While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. 

In Italian, words identical in sound, and even in spelling, 
are allowed as rhymes, when their meaning is different. 
Milton has followed this when he makes 

The better part with Mary and with Ruth 
rhyme with 

No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth ; 

and Tennyson, when he makes 

The holly by the cottage cave 
rhyme with 

And sadly falls our Christmas eve. 1 
In these instances, however, the rhymes are distant from 

1 Altered in the last edition. 



METRE. 165 

each other. It would be difficult to produce from a good 
writer many instances of this license in a couplet ; though, 
even in a couplet, Wordsworth makes " sense " and " inno- 
cence " rhyme together. 

Note that (though in some parts of England the r in morn, 
and other words, is nearly dropped), it is not allowable to 
make dawn rhyme with morn, nor Thalia with liar. 

110. Faults in Rhyming. — In rhyming there are two 
opposite defects. The one is that of using words which are 
not appropriate, or not the most appropriate, for the sake of 
the rhyme. The other is that of inexactness in the rhyme 
itself. As the English language is not very rich in rhymes, 
few writers have altogether avoided both defects. Examples 
of the first are frequent in Scott : 

I do not rhyme to that dull elf 
Who cannot picture to himself, — 

where the supposed reader bears no real resemblance to an 
elf ; — or again : 

To Rokeby next he louted low, 
Then stood erect his tale to show. 

' To show ' a tale, for ' to tell ' it, is not English. 

Inexact rhymes are allowed to some extent by almost all 
poets, e.g., love and prove, join and line. Sometimes, how- 
ever, rhymes which are now inexact, were not so when they 
were made, e.g., 

But still the great have kindness in reserve , 
He helped to bury whom he helped to starve, 

was probably exact in Pope's time, reserve being pronounced 



166 METRE. 

resarve. 1 And the same is probably true of love and prove, 
join and line. 

A rhyme, or approximation to rhyme, where rhyme is not 
expected, has a bad effect. It is perhaps introduced for the 
sake of intentional harshness in 

Who writes to make his barrenness appear, 
And strains from hard-bound brains ten lines a year ; 

Pope. 
and perhaps in 

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature. 

Rich. III. i. 1.19. 

But it is difficult to avoid an unpleasant effect in 

Prince. Is it upon record, or else reported 

Successively from age to age he built it ? 
Buck. Upon record, my gracious lord. — lb. iii. 1. 74. 

Milton expressly objects to the harsh repetition in the 
words " teach each." 2 

111. Double Rhyme. — Sometimes the rhyme is not in 
the last syllable, but in the last but one, as "coward" and 
Howard." In this case the final so-called rhyme cannot, 
strictly speaking, be called a rhyme at all, because the conso- 
nant before the final vowel in each case being the same, w, 
there is an identity of sound, not a similarity or rhyme. The 
penultimate syllables rhyme, and the ultimate are identical. 

What can ennoble sots, or fools, or coward*, 

Alas ! not all the blood of all the Hoicards. — Pope. 

1 Starve itself is connected with the German stcrben, and in early 
English is spelt stcrve. 

2 "The Remonstrant, when he was as young as I, could — 

' Teach each hollow grove to sound his love, 
Wearying echo with one changeless word.' M 
And so he well might, and all his auditory besides, with his " teach each." 



METRE. 167 

Whether the charmer sinner it or saint it, 
If folly grow romantic, I must paint it. 

Pope. 

However, it is usual to call this kind of rhyme a double 
rhyme. 

The accent in double rhymes is always on the penultimate, 
and the effect produced by ending with an unaccented 
syllable is to modify the severe decisiveness which often cha- 
racterizes the termination of the single rhyme. Hence, the 
double rhyme is often used in amusing satire, e.g., Butler's 
" Hudibras " and in lighter poetry, e.g. " Alexander's Feast," 
to represent the gentler effects of music : 

Softly sweet in Lydian measures 
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures, 
War, he sung, is toil and trouble, 
Honour but an empty bubble. 

Dryden. 

Hence, also, it is selected in the well-known parody of the 

softer style of poetry, called a " Song, by a person of 

quality " : 

Mild Arcadians, ever blooming, 

Nightly nodding o'er your flocks, 
See my weary days consuming 
All beneath yon flowery rocks. 

Pope.. 

Even double rhymes are a severe tax and strain on the 

writer, and cannot be sustained throughout a long poem. 

Treble rhymes are still rarer, and never used except in 

comic poetry, and there as a tour deforce. 

Then why to courts should I repair, 

Where's such ado with Townshend: \ 
To hear each mortal stamp and swear, 

And every speech with " Zounds'' end ; 
To hear them rail at honest Sunderland, 
And rashly blame the realm of Blunderland. 

Pope. 



168 METRE. 

The double rhyme is, however, often introduced in Odes, 
where the metre is much varied, and here it has not 
necessarily its usual subdued effect of humour or grace : 

Now strike the golden lyre again : 

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain ! 

Break his bonds of sleep asunder, 

And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder. 

Dry den — " Alexander's Feast." 

In Tennyson's Ode on the " Death of the Duke of 
Wellington," the double rhyme is freely used : 

Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore ? 
Here, in streaming London's central roar. 
Let the sound of those he wrought for, 
And the feet of those he fought for, 
Echo round his bones for evermore. 

112. Quantity is the time necessary to pronounce a syl- 
lable distinctly. Thus the quantity of " strives " is said to be 
long compared with the quantity of "in," which is said to 
be short. Quantity has quite a secondary position in 
English metre. In some languages syllables are divided 
by certain rules into long and short, and metre consists of 
long and short syllables recurring in certain positions. In 
English metre, quantity is almost ignored. Thus, though 
the last syllable in Egypt is long (if distinctly pronounced), 
yet, being unaccented, it is treated like any other unaccented 
syllable, without reference to its length. 

In practice, quantity influences the position of words to 
some extent, because, if syllables that are long are placed in 
unaccented positions, a harsh and laboured effect is given to 
the line. This is sometimes a fault, but sometimes it is an 
intentional effect, as in the following couplet of Pope, which 
exemplifies and describes a " labouring line" : 



METEE. 169 

"When A|jax strives | some rock's | vast weight | to throw, 
The line | too la|bours, and | the verse | moves slow. 

Shakspeare, to some extent, and still more Milton, Shelley, 

and many other poets, are very fond of using monosyllables 

without the metrical accent, however long their quantity may 

be: 

Our colours do return in those same hands 

That did | display | them when | we first | march'd forth. 

Shakspeare. 

O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, 
With head, | hands, wings, | or feet | pursues | his way. 

Milton. 
After | this thy | travel j sore, 
Sweet rest | seize thee | ever|more. 
That, to | give the | world increase, 
Shorten'd | hast thy | own life's | lease. 

Milton. 

Gentle, and brave, and generous, no lorn bard, 
Breath'd o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh. 

Shelley. 

In some cases, difficulties may present themselves in 
Elizabethan poetry which arise from the difference between 
the Elizabethan and modern accents. When two mono- 
syllables are compounded into one word, the latter mono- 
syllable, however long in quantity, loses its accent, and in- 
deed sometimes much of its quantity, e.g., mdin-s'l (the 
nautical equivalent for mainsail). Some words, e.g., good- 
man, were recognized as compounds once, but are not now : 
others are recognized as compounds now, e.g., bed-time, but 
perhaps were not yet recognized generally then. This refers 
merely to monosyllables in compound disyllables. There are 
other differences of accent in polysyllables between the 
Elizabethan and the modern usage ; but these must be made 
the subjects of special study. 



170 METRE. 

The difference between Milton and Pope is very marked 
in the use of long syllables. Milton, with the evident 
intention of avoiding anything like epigrammatic point at 
the end of his lines, frequently introduces at the end two 
monosyllables, of which the first, which is unaccented, is 
long in quantity. The effect is to take something from the 
sharpness of the final accent. Thus we find as verse-endings 
"soft lays," "fair truth," "frail man," "strange fire." 
For a similar reason Shakspeare rather avoids, at the end of 
a line, disyllabic words accented on the last syllable, e.g., 
remain. The accent is too marked for continuous dramatic 
verse. Shakspeare often uses trisyllables, which, owing to 
the weakness of the final accent, are avoided by Pope. 

113, Exaggeration of the Effect of Quantity on 
English Metre. — If quantity were the exclusive considera- 
tion in English metre, it would be possible to divide each line 
into a certain number of parts of time called measures : and 
in each measure as many syllables might be compressed as 
could be pronounced in the time assigned to the measure. 
Thus, as music is divided into bars, and a bar may be filled 
with one, or two, or three, or four, or almost any number 
of distinct notes, subject to this condition, that, whether 
the notes be one or eight in number, the time occupied in 
producing the notes in each bar shall be always the same, so a 
similar system might (if quantity were the standard of metre) 
be adopted in poetry. As in music one minim takes as 
much time as two crotchets or four quavers, so a word like 
strires might be said to occupy the same time as earning or 
solitary, and (on this theory) such words might be inter- 
changed without interference with the metrical effect. But 
this theory cannot be supported by the literature of English 



METRE. 171 

poetry. No instance whatever could be given where a mea- 
sure of eight or twelve syllables in one instance corresponded 
to a measure of two syllables in another. Moreover in 
poetry, the so-called measures are not pronounced in the 
same time. Thus, in 

Rocks, caves, | lakes, fens, | bogs, dens, | and shades | of death, 

1 2 3 4 5 

Milton. 
(1), (2), and (3) take much more time than (4) or (5). 

It is therefore more in accordance with truth, in explaining 
any English metre, to state definitely the law of accent, i.e., 
whether the accent recurs as a rule with an interval of one 
or two unaccented syllables. As a supplementary explana- 
tion, it may be added that some syllables are so little noticed 
in pronunciation, that they are (1) either totally suppressed, 
as is the case always with superfluous syllables in the tri- 
syllabic, and often in the disyllabic, metre, or (2) admitted as 
a rare but pleasing variety, not sufficiently irregular to break 
the general effect of the metre, which sometimes takes place 
in the disyllabic metre, but not in the trisyllabic. 

114. Slurred Syllables are syllables which are so little 
noticed in pronunciation that they are either ignored in 
metre, or are not considered noticeable enough to be objec- 
tionably intrusive when they come irregularly and super- 
fluously in disyllabic metre. There are degrees of slurring, 
differing so slightly from one another that it is often im- 
possible to say whether a slurred syllable is heard a little, 
or not heard at all. For instance, the e in " whispering "is 
slurred, but probably not wholly ignored (and, indeed, it is 
almost impossible to avoid uttering a slight vowel sound) in 

By ivhisp'\ring winds | soon lull'd | asleep. 

Milton. 



172 METRE. 

But in the following line, written in the stricter trisyllabic 
measure, it is not slurred : 

And the whis\pering sound | of the cool | colonnade. 

Coivper. 

It would be useless to attempt to divide all slurred sylla- 
bles into those which are not pronounced at all, and those 
which are but slightly pronounced, because different persons 
will differ in their pronunciation of many of these syllables. 
Some syllables are entirely ignored, even in prose, e.g., -ed 
final, except after dentals. The double sound in -tion is also 
scarcely audible, and is by some declared to be always inau- 
dible. But betwixt this complete suppression and the ordinary 
sound of an unaccented syllable, there are many degrees 
of suppression, as in " timorous," "popular," " heavenly," 
"glorious," "beneath," "travellers," "misery." If we attempt 
to classify these degrees, we are met with a difficulty. We 
might indeed say with truth that, at the present time, the e 
in heavenly is more nearly suppressed than the u in popular. 
But at different periods in English literature the pronuncia- 
tion appears to have differed, and certainly there has been a 
difference in the poetic usage of slurring. Very often the 
suppression or slurring of a syllable was indicated by the 
spelling. In the early editions of Milton's Poems we find 
tim'rous, whisp'ring, and the like. But we cannot infer from 
the contracted spelling that the syllable omitted was totally 
suppressed. For though we still write o'er and e'er in 
poetry, yet the sound is not, and cannot be, totally sup- 
pressed in o'er, for example. It is therefore best to use 
some term such as slvrred to apply to all such syllables, 
without attempting tc decide what is the degree of slurring. 

The license of slurring syllables was more freely used by 



METRE. 173 

Shakspeare and his contemporaries than it is by modern 
writers. Prefixes were often suppressed, even in writing, 
which we could not now suppress. Thus the Elizabethan 
dramatists wrote 'stroy for destroy, 'tide for decide, 'stall for 
install, a license which we mostly restrict now to prepositions, 
such as 'neath, 'twisct. Of, in, with, whether, and the were 
often written respectively o\ i\ wi\ ivhe'er, and th\ and the 
rapidity of their pronunciation and their power of combining 
syllables may be illustrated by " God be with you," con- 
tracted into " God be wi' ye," and then into " good-bye." 
Milton, though he allows himself less license, is fond of 
eliding the final -y before a following vowel : 

(a) Passion ] and ap|athy | and glov\y | and | shame, 
(&) Impress' d | the efiulg|ence of | his glor\y abides. 

Sometimes other vowel sounds are elided by him : 

{a) By herjald's voice | explain'd; | the h6U\ow dbjss. 

(b) May I | express | thee unblamed, | since God | is light ? 

(c) Ab6m|inabl|e, iniit|terabl|e, and worse. 

It is impossible here to state the limitations which restricted 
the Elizabethan license of slurring ; they must be made the 
subject of special study. But as regards modern poetry 
there is not the same necessity for study. The ear is the 
sole guide. Wherever we find that extra syllables do not 
destroy the requisite amount of regularity, they may be 
safely inserted. 

115. Pause in Blank Verse. — A verse of six accents, if 
broken into two equal halves by a marked pause, approxi- 
mates to two distinct verses, e.g., 



174 METRE. 

T he veins pour back the blood, | and fortify' the heart. 

Dryden. 

In verses of five accents, the effect is somewhat different, 
but it is no less important. As the number of accents is 
uneven, the verse cannot be divided into two equal parts ; 
but by a judicious variation of the pause, the verses can be 
broken into sections, which are free from the monotony that 
would attend a continuous poem in pauseless verses of five 
accents. "Where there is no rhyme, a great deal of the 
beauty of the rhythm depends upon the variation of the 
pause ; and if the pause be neglected in reading, much of 
the rhythmical effect is lost. Some of the best examples of 
this variation are found in Milton, one of which will now be 
given. Opposite each line is a number denoting the number 
of feet that precede the pause. 

No pause. From branch | to branch I the small|er birds | with song 
2 Solaced | the woods, \ and spread | their paint |ed wings 

1 Till even; | nor then | the sol|emn nightjingale 

1J Ceased wdrb\ling, but | all night | tuned her | soft lays : 

1, 4^ Others, | on silv|er lakes | and riv|ers, bathed 

2 Their down|y breast ; | the swan | with arch|ed neck 
4 J Between | her white | wings mant|ling ])roud\ly, rows 

3 Her state | with oar|y feet ; | yet 6ft | they quit 
1, 4 \ The dank, J and ris|ing on | stiff' pensions, tower 
3 The mid | ae|rial sky: | others j on ground 

1 Walk'd firm : \ the crest|ed cock | whose clar|ion sounds 

2 The si|lent hours; | and the 6th|er, whose | gay train 
1^ Adorns | him, col|our'd with | the flor|id hue 

3 (?) Of rainjbows and j starry eyes. 

Paradise Lost. 

The pauses denoted by 1 and If are very common in Milton, 
and very uncommon in Pope. They break the epigrammatic 
regularity of a rhyming couplet, but afford a pleasing irre- 
gularity in blank verse. Tennyson often uses the latter. 



METRE. 175 

3£ Not less | Geraint | believed | it ; and | there fell 

2J A horr]or on | him, lest | his gent|le wife, 

No pause. Thro' that | great tend|erness | for Gum evere, 

1J Had si\f\fer'd, or | should sufjfer an|y taint 

1^ In nature: wherejfore go|ing to | the king 

2^ He made | this pretext, that | his princedom lay 

No pause. Close on | the bordjers of | a terr|itory 

3 Wherein | were band|it earls, \ and cait|iff knights, 

1J Assassins, and | all fly|ers from | the hand 

*i Ofjust\ice, and | whatever loathes | a law. 

The 4| pause is also very common in Tennyson : 

Once for wrong done you by confusion ; next 
For thanks, it seems, till now neglected ; last 
For these your dainty gambols. 

Tennyson. 

116. Pause in Pope. — It has been said also that the 1| 
pause is very rare in Pope. But where the irregularity is 
in place, as, for instance, in describing the restless Atossa, 
we find it repeated consecutively : 

Offend | her, and j she knows | not to | forgive, 
Oblige | her, and | she'll hate | you while | you live. 

The most common pauses in Pope are 2 and 2|, and more 
rarely 3 ; 1 is rare, and 1\ rarest of all. Though it is 
impossible to lay down any rule regulating the pauses, yet it 
is probably true that the pause 2, which is iambic, is 
better fitted for didactic and severe epigram, while 2J, 
which gives a trochaic effect, is adapted for description and 
the expression of sentiment, or for less serious epigram. In 
a passage of any length the two are interspersed; but in 
some of the short epigrammatic maxims most commonly 
quoted from Pope, the pause 2 is repeated. 



176 METRE. 

(a) .Some err in that, but many err in this. 
Ten censure ill, for one who writes amiss. 
2 (b) J For forms of faith, let graceless zealots fight 
] He can't be wrong, whose life is in the right. 
(c) Here then we rest : the Universal Cause 
^ Acts to one end, but acts by various laws. 



i 



Who starves by nobles, or with nobles eats ? 

The wretch that trusts them, and the rogue that cheats ? 



Note how the general and didactic passes, in the following 
passage, into the particular and descriptive, and remark the 
corresponding change of pause : 

( See the same man, in vigour and in gout ; 
Iambic Pause | Alone, in company, in place, or out ; 



Trochaic Pause 



(Early at business, and at hazard late, 
Mad at a fox- chase, wise at a debate ; 
Drunk at a borough, civil at a ball, 
Friendly at Hackney, faithless at Whitehall. 



On the contrary, note how the descriptive passes into the 
moral with the corresponding change in pause, in 

m t- • t> f Vice is a monster of so frightful mien 
Trochaic Pause \ f 

I As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; 

Iambic Pause i Yet seen to ° oft ' famaiar with her face > 

I We first endure, then pity, then embrace. 

In description, however, the pause is more varied, as in the 
following example, where note the final couplet with two 
lines identical in form, both containing iambic pause, which 
adds intensity to the epigrammatic sting. The final couplet 
is the more effective because it is immediately preceded by 
lines with the trochaic pause, and by pauseless lines : 

2 Peace to all such ! But were there one whose fires 

2£ True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires ; 

No pause. Blest with each talent and each art to please, 



METRE. 



177 



2 & 3 And born to write, converse, and live with ease : 

2 Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, 

\ & 2 Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, 

2£ View him with scornful yet with jealous eyes, 

2 And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rise ; 

2 Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 

2J And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer ; 

2 Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 

2 Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike ; 

No pause. Alike reserved to blame or to commend, 

2 A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend, 

2 Dreading ev'n fools, by flatterers besieged, 

2J And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged, 

1^ Like Cato, give his little senate laws, 

No pause. And sit attentive to his own applause, 

No pause. While wits and Templars every sentence raise, 

No pause. And wonder with a foolish face of praise 

2 Who but must laugh, if such a man there be, 

2 Who but must weep, if Atticus were he ? 

117. Pause in Dryden, — Effective and unsurpassable as 
these lines are in their peculiar style, they are somewhat 
artificial. The style of Dryden, which is no less vigorous 
and more natural than that of Pope, seems better suited for 
a continuous poem. Though there are more pauseless lines 
in Dryden, yet the monotony is not excessive. 

No pause. Of these the false Achitophel was first, 

No pause. A name to all succeeding ages curst : 

No pause. For close designs and crooked counsels fit, 

1 J & 2 Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit. 

1 Restless, unfixed in principles and place, 

2 In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace. 
2 A fiery soul, which, working out its way, 

No pause. Fretted the pigmy body to decay, 

No pause. And o'er informed the tenement of clay. 

No pause. A daring pilot in extremity, 

2J Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high, 

2 He sought the storms : but, for a calm unfit 

No pause. Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit. 

12 



178 METKE. 

Again : 

No pause. Some of their chiefs were princes in the land ; 

No pause. In the first rank of these did Zimri stand, 

No pause. A man so various that he seemed to be 

1 Not one, but all mankind's epitome : 
2J Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong", 

3 Was everything by starts, and nothing long ; 

No pause. But, in the course of one revolving moon, 

\\ & 2J Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon ; 

2J & 3J & 4J Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, 

No pause. Beside ten thousand freaks that died in thinking : 

\\ Blest madman, who could every hour employ 

2 With something new to wish or to enjoy ! 
No pause. Railing and praising were his usual themes, 

1 & 3J And both, to show his judgment, in extremes : 
No pause. So over- violent or over-civil, 
No pause. That every man with him was God or Devil. 

118. Compensation of Pauses. — Where there is an ex- 
cess of pauses in one line, a kind of compensation is ob- 
tained by avoiding all pause, or, at all events, the usual 
pause in the other line of the couplet : 

(a) Here files of pins extend their shining rows, 
Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billets-doux. 

(b) Pretty ! in amber to observe the forms 

Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms. 

(c) Laugh'd at the loss of friends he never had, 
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad. 

(d) I only wear it in a land of Hectors, 
Thieves, supercargoes, sharpers, and directors. 

(e) The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read ; 
Even mitred Rochester would nod the head. 

The following exceptions are intentionally harsh : 



METRE. 179 

(a) In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies, 

Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies. 
His wit all see-saw, between " that " and " this," 
Now high, now low, now master up, now miss. 

(b) What ! Like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce, 
With arms, and George, and Brunswick crowd the verse ; 
Rend with tremendous sound your ears asunder, 

With gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder ? 

119, Introductory Pause. — The above remarks are in- 
tended to call the reader's attention to the importance of the 
pause, and to the necessity of regarding it in reading. To 
trace and describe in detail rules that may have been 
observed by certain poets would be a complicated and not a 
very profitable task. It may be sufficient to show that the 
2| pause, which has been said to be suitable for introducing 
a subject, is a favourite prelude for a simile. 

(a) As some lone miser, visiting his store, etc. 

Goldsmith. 

(b) As some fair female, unadorned and plain, etc. 

lb. 

In both the two following examples the pause in the second 
line is 1, while it is 2| in the first, and the effect is singularly 
beautiful. 

As some fair tulip, by a storm opprest, 
Shrinks up, and folds its silken arms to rest. 

Dry den, 
So tivo hind turtles, when a storm is nigh, 
Look up, and see it gathering in the sky. 

lb. 

120. The Pause in Descriptive Poetry. — The unfit- 
ness of conjunctions for poetic diction increases the need of 
pauses, and makes the pause more marked, especially in a 
description comprising many distinct objects, each of which 



180 METRE. 

must be briefly mentioned. The following passage from 
Spenser illustrates the importance of the pause in such cases. 
For the most part Spenser does not apparently take much 
pains to vary the pause, and many verses have no pause at 
all ; but here, if the same pause which is repeated in the first 
three verses had been continued longer, the monotony would 
have been disagreeable, and therefore the pause is most 
carefully varied : 

No pause. Much 'gan they praise the trees so straight and high, — 

2 The sapling Pine ; the Cedar proud and tall ; 

2 The vine-propp Elm ; the Poplar never dry ; 

2 The buildder Oake, sole king of forrests all ; 

3 The Aspine good for staves ; the Cypresse funerall ; 
1J The Laurell, meed of mighty conquerours 

2 And poets sage ; the Firre that weepeth still ; 

1^ The Willow, worne of forlorne Paramoures; 

1 The Eugh, obedient to the bender's will ; 

2 The Birche for shaftes ; the Sallow for the mill ; 

1 The Mirrhe, sweet-bleeding in the bitter wound ; 

2 The warlike Beech : the Ash for nothing ill ; 
2J The fruitful Olive ; and the Platane sound ; 

2 The carver Holme : the Maple seldom inward sound. 

121. The Pause at the end of the line is almost 
essential to the couplet, and it is generally to be found in 
dramatic blank verse. But in descriptive blank verse, and 
in some of the plays of Shakspeare, it is sometimes dis- 
pensed with : 

When, to enshrine his reliques in the Sun's 
Bright temple, to Egyptian Thebes he flies. 

Milton. 

I know not : but I'm sure 'tis safer to 

Avoid what's grown than question how 'tis born. 

Winter's Tale. 

The following, in the rhyming couplet, is an exception : 



METRE. 181 

But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays, 
One flood of glory, one unclouded blaze 
O'erfloiv thy courts, the light himself shall shine 
Revealed, and God's eternal day be thine. 

The Messiah. 

122. Alliteration is not, like accent, recognized in theory 
as an essential requisite of poetry. Yet in practice some 
kind of alliteration forms a noticeable feature in all the best 
English poets, and especially in poetry that has taken the 
popular fancy. Take as examples two well-known hymns : 

(a) Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, 
iook upon a Zittle child, 
Pity my simplicity, 

Suffer me to come to Thee. 

(b) Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear, 
It is not mght, if Thou be near. 

In the verse of Dryden the alliteration is often as obvious 
and simple as in the above examples : 

(a) .Deep in a dungeon was the captive cast, 

Deprived of day, and held in/etters/ast; 

(&) Then day and darkness in the mass were mixed, 

Till #ather'd in a globe the beams were fixed. 

Pope seldom indulges in this obvious kind of consecutive 
alliteration repeated in both lines of the couplet. He con- 
ceals it, for the most part, more carefully, by separating the 
words. The following are exceptional in him : 

(a) Alas, no more ! methinks we icandering go 
Thro' dreary wastes, and tceep each other's woe. 

(b) Soft as the slumbers of a saint forgiven. 

(c) Who shall decide when doctors disagree ! 

The following examples represent a more common type 
of the alliteration in Pope : 



182 METRE. 

(a) And 7*eals with morals what it /jurt with wit. 

{b) May every JBavius have his .Bufo still. 

(<?) Is there a parson, much ftemus'd in 5eer, 
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming ^peer ? 

123. Concealed Alliteration.— More often alliteration 
is still more subtly concealed. Thus in the following lines of 
Milton there is a double alliteration that might escape notice 
because the alliterative words are separated from one 
another ; but the effect is singularly beautiful. 

The air 
f P > f P- -floats as they j^ass, /ann'd with unnumber'd flumes : 

From branch to branch, the smaller birds with song 
$, xo ; s, zv. Solaced the tcoo&s, and spread their painted icings 

Till even. Paradise Lost. 

d, m; d, m. Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. 

Richard III. 

sp, I ; sp,'l. So speechless for a Zittle space he ?ay. 

Dry den. 

Or, again, there may be alliteration between the words that 
are the extremes and means of a kind of verbal proportion : 

h, t, h. The 7iallow'd faper trembling in thy 7*and. 

Pope. 

I, h, I. One Zaced the Tielm, another held the fence. 

Dry den. 

s, m, s. /Sonorous ?/*etal making martial sounds. 

Milton. 

Cjf, c. We conquer'd Prance, butj^elt our captive's charms. 

Pope. 

Lastly, the alliteration may depend, not upon the initial, 
but upon the middle syllables of words : 



METRE. 183 

{a) The Zustre of the Zong convoZvuZuses. 

Tennyson. 

(b) The Zeague-Zong roZZer thundering on the reef. 

lb. 

Often the alliteration may repeat similar, not the same, 
letters, for example, d and t, or b and p, as in 

This truth came borne with Mer and pa.ll, 
I felt it when I sorrowed most, 
'Tis Setter to have Zoved and Zost, 
Than never to have Zoved at a 11. 

lb. 

It is not to be supposed that poets, in the act of writing 
poetry, observed any distinct laws of alliteration, or were 
even aware in all cases that they were employing alliteration 
at all. They were guided by their ear, and by the traditions 
of English poetry. It will hereafter be shown that allite- 
ration was an essential part, or rather the basis, of early 
English poetry. What rhyme is now, that was alliteration 
then. An ignorance of the traditional importance of allitera- 
tion may perhaps account for the harshness of the words of 
many modern songs as compared with the smoothness of 
the songs of the seventeenth century. 

124. Early English Alliterative Poetry consisted of 
couplets in which each section contained two or more 
accented initial syllables. 1 Of these four syllables, the two 
in the first section, and, as a rule, the first of the two in the 
second section, were alliterated : 

I sftope me in s/iroudes || as I a sheve were. 

Piers the Ploivman. 

1 "More than two are frequently found in the first half-line, hut rarely 
in the second." — Skeat. 



184 METRE. 

It is an exception, and perhaps an accidental one, when 
both accented syllables in the second section are alliterated : 

Inmer seson, || whan soft was the aos Sonne. 

Piers the Plowman. 

More often, though still an exception, there are more 
than two alliterative syllables in the first section, and one 
in the second : 

jPaire floures/br to/ecche || that he bi-ybre him seye (saw). 

William and Werwolf. 

By an exceptional license, unaccented syllables are some- 
times alliterated : 

And ivith him to wonge (dwell) with too \\ whil God is in hevene. 

Piers the Plowman. 

125. Influence of Early English Poetry on the 
Elizabethan Writers.— The introduction of a fourth allite- 
rated letter is a mark of lateness of date in early English 
poetry. This shows that the taste for alliteration did not 
vanish with the decay of alliterative poetry. It is true that 
the introduction of rhyme, supplying a different kind of 
poetic regularity, diminished the need of alliteration ; but 
alliteration still clung even to rhyming poetry. 

Rhyme, and not alliteration, was the basis of the French 
metres, and it is natural to suppose that foreign influence 
helped much in extending the use of rhyme. As rhyme in 
itself is a considerable restraint on the free choice of words, 
rhyme and alliteration together became an intolerable restric- 
tion ; and alliteration, from being a law, became a custom 
frequently, but not invariably, observed. Yet the attempt 
to combine the now rhyming system with the old alliterative 



METRE. 185 

system was made. The following example is taken from a 
poem written about a.d. 1360 : 

A gvene hors gret and thikke, 

A stedefull stiffto str&yne. 

In frrawden (embroidered) bry&el quik, 

To pe (the) gome (man) he watz (was) ful #ayn (useful). 

Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, 

There is little difference between this systematic allitera- 
tion and the alliteration of some passages in Dryden. But 
some of the Elizabethan writers use the old alliteration, not 
as Dryden did, in occasional passages, but continuously. 

126. Alliteration in Elizabethan Authors. 1 — The fol- 
lowing is a curious example of the original early English 
alliteration in couplets. The date is about 1600 a.d. 

Sitting by a river's side, 
Where a silent stream did glide, 
31use I did of many things 
That the mind in quiet brings. 

Greene, 

The same poet sometimes places the double alliteration in 
the second line : 

It was/rosty winter season 
And /air -Flora's wealth was geason. 
When I saw a shepherd fold 
Sheey in cote to shun the cold. 

Greene. 

But the effect of the continued alliteration, combined with 
rhyme, was artificial and hampering in the extreme. Take 
the following as an example : 

. 1 Lyly's " Euphues " abounds in instances of complicated alliteration. 



186 METRE. 

To trust the t /ayned t /ace, to rue on/orced tears 
To credit/inely/orged tales, wherein there oft appeares 
And &?'eathes as from the &reast a smoke of kindled smart 
Where only lurkes a dene deceit within the /iollow hart. 

Tottel's Miscellany, a.d. L>j7. 

It therefore came to be considered archaic, and when found 
in excess in Spenser's "Faerie Queene," it must be treated 
as an archaism. 

(a) The wise soothsayer seeing so sad sight. 

Faerie Queen. 

Repining courage yields 
(J?) No/oot to foe; the flashing fire flies 

As from a forge. lb. 

As an archaism, this excess of alliteration is ridiculed by 
Shakspeare : 

Whereat Tvith blade, with &Zoody 5Zameful 5Zade, 
He &?*avely Z>roach'd Ins froiZing &Zoody frreast. 

Midsummer Nighfs Dream. 

Shakspeare uses little alliteration in his descriptive 
verses of four accents (except in the songs) ; but in the non- 
rhyming dramatic lines he uses it on occasion with great 
effect, sometimes in an obvious manner, as : 

This precious stone set in the .silver sea. 

Richard III. 

More often the alliterative syllables are separated : 

(a) With roclts unscaleable and roaring waters. 

(b) He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber 
To the Zascivious pleasing of a late. 



METRE. 187 

127. Milton's Alliteration in the " Paradise Lost" is 
somewhat less marked than in the " Comus " and the smaller 
poems ; but in all his poetry, written in the verse of five ac- 
cents, he tones down the alliterative effect by often alliterat- 
ing unaccented syllables. It has been stated that this is an 
irregular license in early English poetry. 

(a) Or 'gainst the rugged &ark of some frroad elm. 

Comus. 

(b) With thy ZoEg Zevell'd rule of streaming Zight. 

lb. 

(c) Perhaps some cold frank is her bolster now. 

lb. 

(d) Though sun and moon 
Were in the flat sea sunk. 

lb. 

Often the alliterative syllables are not initial. Thus it is 
impossible not to perceive the force of alliteration in the 
following line, though only one of the alliterative letters is 
initial : 

Yet they in pZeasing sZumber ZuZZed the sense. 

lb. 

Alliteration is also disguised (1) when the alliterative con- 
sonants are not identical, but similar, as b and p, d and t, r 
and Z, m and n, c hard and g hard, and the like ; (2) when 
initial syllables alliterate with syllables that are not initial ; 
(3) when the alliterating syllables are not in the same line. 
We do not intend to do more than direct the reader's atten- 
tion to the exquisiteness of Milton's versification in this 
respect. It is pervaded by a continuous and varying allite- 
ration which, without being obtrusive, gives a distinct 



188 METRE. 

pleasure to the pronunciation of his verses, apart from their 
meaning. The following is an instance. The last line sub- 
stitutes for alliteration a powerful vowel effect. 

b, p ; t, t. But .Beauty, like the fair Hesperian free, 

Z, d, g. Laden with bZooming gold had need the guard 

g, ch. Of dragon watc/i, with unencftanted eye, 

s, f. To save her blossoms and defend her/ruit 

a, a, o, o. From the rash hand of bold Incontinence. 

In Milton's four-accent verse, alliteration is more obvious 
and frequent, but nowhere so marked as in the following 
passage, describing the " wanton heed and giddy cunning" 
of poetic euphony : 

Or sweetest #hakspeare, Fancy's child, 
TFarble his native wood-notes wild. 
And ever against eating cares 
Zap me in soft Zydian airs, 
.Married to immortal verse ; 
Such as the meeting soul may pierce, 
In notes, with many a winding bout 
Of Zinked sweetness Zong drawn out, 
With wanton heed and giddy cunning 
The melting voice through mazes running, 
Untfwisftng all the chains that tie 
The Mdden soul of harmony. 

128. In Vowel Alliteration in early English poetry it 
was not necessary that the vowels at the beginning of the 
accented syllables should be the same. Any vowels what- 
ever satisfied the requirement. Vowel alliteration is not so 
obvious or common as the alliteration of consonants. The 
following is perhaps an example : 

Where awful arches make a noonday night. 

Pope. 



METRE. 189 

The following~certainly~is : 

Though oft the ear the open vowels tire. 

lb. 

But it is more common in Milton : 

(a) With sudden adoration and blank awe, 
(&) Of ^.mram's son, in Egypt's evil day. 
(e) -4ir, and ye elements, the eldest birth. 

129. The Influence of Early English Poetry on the 
Initial Foot. — In all the iambic and trisyllabic metres of 
modern English poetry, a great license is noticeable in the 
first or initial foot of a line. In the iambic metre, instead of 
an iamb, a trochee is often found, as : 

Comfort | my liege ! | Why looks | your grace | so pale ? 

Michard II. 

Again, in the trisyllabic metre an iamb is often found for 
an anapaest: 

The winds | play no longjer and sing | in the leaves. 

Cowper. 

This may be explained by reference to the early English 
poetry, as follows : 

Lines or half-lines in early English poetry do not always 
begin with an accented syllable. Often one or more sylla- 
bles precede the accented syllable. These syllables, which 
may be called a catch, are not necessary to the scansion, 
though they are to the sense. 

The catch consists of one syllable, and of two syllables 
respectively, in the two sections of the following couplet : 



190 METRE. 

In a | somer sesun || when softe was the sonne. 

Piers the Ploughman. 

Now it is evident that this license of adding syllables at 
the beginning of the line, or of a section of a line, alters the 
character of the initial foot. In early English alliterative 
poetry, the number of syllables in a verse was not counted ; 
in the foreign rhyming metre the syllables were counted. 
When these two totally distinct systems blended together, 
the Early English license of disregarding unaccented syllables 
was curtailed, though not destroyed, in the middle of the 
verse ; but at the beginning of the verse, and after a marked 
pause in a verse, the license was retained almost unimpaired, 
as will be seen hereafter. 



SPECIAL METRES. 

DISYLLABIC. 



130. One Accent.— Iambic lines, if they may be so called, 
of one accent, are found in some lyrical poems of the seven- 
teenth century, as — 

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see 

You haste away so soon : 
As yet the early rising sun 
Has not attained his noon. 

Stay, stau, 
Until the hasting day 

Has run 
But to the even-song j 
And having pray'd together, we 
Will go with you along. 

Herrick. 



METRE. 191 

Such short lines are very commonly used by Shakspeare, 
especially to express ejaculations and appellations : 

Alack, 

I love myself. Wherefore ? For any good ? 

Richard III. 

For, sir, 

It is as sure as you are Roderigo. 

Othello. 

The trochaic line with one accent scarcely exists. Perhaps 
the word " never " in Longfellow's well-known refrain, 

Never, for ever, 

may be considered a specimen of a one-accent rhyming 
trochaic line. 



131. Two Accents, — Iambic lines of two accents occur 
sometimes in odes, e.g., in Wordsworth's " Ode on the Inti- 
mations of Immortality," and in Dryden's " Ode on the 
Power of Music." They are often found in lyrical poems 
of the seventeenth century. 

Your date is not so past, 
But you may stay yet here awhile, 
To blush and gently smile, 
And go at last. 

Herrick — " Blossoms." 

Sceptre and croicn 

Must tumble dozen, 

And in the dust be equal made 

With the poor crooked scythe and spade. 

Shirley. 

The iambic line, with an extra unaccented syllable, is 
often used by Burns as a short line : 



192 METRE. 

There's ither poets much your betters, 
Far seen m Greek, deep men of letters, 
Hae thought they had insured their debtors 

A' future ages ; 
Now moths deform in shapeless tetters 

Their unknown pages. 

Trochaic lines of two accents are rare. The two following 
are the only lines of the kind in Dryden's " Alexander's 
Feast": 

Rich the treasure, 

Sweet the pleasure, 

Sweet the pleasure after pain. 

The trochaic metre of two accents, omitting the last un- 
accented syllable, is not fitted for serious subjects. It is used 
by Pope in a little poem called "An Ode by Tilly-Tit, Poet 
Laureate to His Majesty of Lilliput," addressed to " The 
Man-Mountain." 

From his nose 
Clouds he blows : 
When he speaks, 
Thunder breaks : 
When he eats, 
Famine threats ; 
When he drinks, 
Neptune shrinks. 

It is remarkable that Pope should have used this lillipu- 
tian metre in his " Ode on St. Cecilia's Day/' The effect is 
very bad. 

Dreadful gleams, 
Dismal screams, 
Fires that glow, 
Shrieks of woe. 



METRE. 193 

132. Three Accents and Six Accents.— -The iambic 

line of three accents is very common in ballads and hymns. 

It is often used alternately with the iambic line of four 

accents. 

O Brignall banks are wild and fair 

And Greta woods are green ; 
And you may gather garlands there 
Would grace a summer-queen. 

Scott. 

In the narrative poetry of Scott it often concludes a stanza 
of iambic verses of four accents, much as it is used in 

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 
Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
All are but ministers of love, 
And feed his sacred flame. 

Coleridge — " Love." 

The trochaic verse with three accents is very rare. In 
the following example it is often connected with an irregular 
trochaic verse containing an extra syllable in the initial foot, 
or omitting the final unaccented syllable. 

Who is | he that \ cometh 
Like an | honour'd | guest ? 
(With) banner | and with | music 
(With) soldier | and with | priest. 
With a | nation | weeping, 
(And) breaking | on my | rest ? 

Tennyson. 

The extra syllable in the last example renders it possible 
to call the line iambic instead of trochaic ; but the trochaic 
spirit is so clearly prevalent throughout the passage, that it 
seems better to call such lines irregular trochaics, treating 
the extra syllable as a " catch." * 

1 See Paragraph 129. 

12 



194 METRE. 

The three -accent iambic is often used by Shakspeare for 
rapid retort, sometimes with rhyme : 

Rosalind. The hour that fools should ask. 
JBiron. Now fair befal your mask. 

Love's Labour Lost. 

But more often without rhyme : 

Anne. I would I knew thy heart. 

Gloucester. 'Tis figured in my tongue. 

Bichard III. 

The three- accent iambic with alternate rhyme, though 
occasionally used in modern hymns, is somewhat mono- 
tonous. It is not uncommon in the poems of Surrey and 
Wyatt. 

Though I regarded not 
The promise made by me, 
Or passed (recked) not to spot 
My faith and honestie. 

Surrey. 

When two iambic three-accent lines have no marked 
pause between them, and the first line does not rhyme with 
the second, the two become one line with six accents, called 
an Alexandrine. The following is not only a specimen, but 
intended to be descriptive of the somewhat dragging eflect 
of such a line, — 

A needless Alexandrine ends the song, 

And, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. 

Pope. 

Dryden freely intersperses it in his longer poems, generally 
at the end of a paragraph ; Spenser inserts it at the end of 
each stanza in the " Faery Queene." It is unfit for dramatic 
purposes, though sometimes used with rhyme, as by Peele, 



METRE. 195 

the contemporary of Shakspeare, in his. " Arraignment of 
Paris." Shakspeare seldom uses it except where the pause 
is so marked as to make the line really two lines of three 
accents each. He introduces it into the mouth of ranting 
Pistol, and uses it for an inscription : 

Portia. Now make your choice. 

Morocco. The first, of gold, who this inscription bears, 

•* Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire : " 

The second silver, which this promise carries, 

"Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves : " 

The third dull lead, with warning all as blunt, 

" Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath." 

Merchant of Venice. 

It is followed by a verse of seven accents in : 

Alcwiades. [Reads the epitaph.] 

" Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft : 

Seek not my name : a plague consume you wicked caitiffs left." 

In Sir Thomas North's Plutarch, a book from which 
Shakspeare drew largely for the subjects of his plays, the 
Alexandrine metre is constantly employed to translate quota- 
tions and inscriptions ; and this may have influenced Shaks- 
peare in his use of this metre. Many apparent Alexandrines 
in Shakspeare are Alexandrines only in appearance. 

The three-accent rhyming couplet, used alternately with 
the three-accent non-rhyming couplet, becomes a spirited 
ballad metre in Lord Macaulay's " Battle of Naseby " : 

Their heads all stooping low, their points all of a row, 
Like a whirlwind on the trees, like a deluge on the dykes, 
Our cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of the accurst, 
And at a shock have shattered the forest of his pikes. 

The Iambic three-accent verse has sometimes an extra 
syllable. This line is not often used unmixed. It precedes 



196 METKE. 

the shorter three- accent iambic, and is used seriously in the 
following : 

I fly to scenes romantic, 

Where never men resort, 
For in an age so frantic 

Impiety is sport. 

Cowper. 

When it follows the longer line of four accents, it generally 
has a comic effect, as in 

Patron of all those luckless brains 

That, to the wrong side leaning, 
Indite much metre with much pains, 

And little or no meaning . 

lb. 

The same metre is used with the same effect by Tennyson 
in his " Will Waterproof " and "Amphion." 

The trochaic three-accent sometimes dispenses with the 
final unaccented syllable : 

Crabbed age and youth 
Cannot live together : 
Youth is full of pleasance, 
Age is full of care. 

The Passionate Pilgrim. 

133. Iambic verse with four accents is commonly 
used for ballad-narrative, as in Scott's Poems. In ballads 
and hymns it is generally followed by a line, of three accents, 
and the poems of Scott contain a few three-accent lines 
irregularly interspersed. Unmixed with other lines, the 
four- accent iambic is somewhat monotonous. 

There is a great difference between the earlier verses in 
his metre, written by Surrey and Wyatt, and the later 
metre of Scott. In the former the verse is generally split 



METRE. 197 

Into two halves, as in the following anonymous poem from 
Totters Miscellany, 1557 a.d. 

The sun when he | hath spread his rays 
And showed his face | ten thousand ways, 
Ten thousand things | do then begin 
To show the life | that they are in. 

In the poem from which this extract is taken, out of the 
first forty-five verses, only two are found without the 
division in the middle. Very different is the metre of Scott: 

With early dawn | Lord Marmion rose, 

And first the chap\el doors unclose ; 

Then after mom\ing rites were done 

(A hasty mass | from Friar John), 

And knight and squire | had broke their fast 

On rich substantial repast, 

Lord Marmion's bu\gles blew to horse ; 

Then came the stir\rup cup in course 

Between the Bar\on and his host : 

No point of court\esy was lost. 

In fables and the lighter kind of narrative this metre often 
has interspersed lines with an extra syllable unaccented, as 
in Butler's Hudibras : 

Whose honesty they all would swear for, 
Tho' not a man of them knew wherefore. 

The extra syllable is rare in serious poetry. 

134. The trochaic verse of four accents was more 
common in the Elizabethan period than the iambic verse of 
four accents. The English tendency to throw back the 
accent in disyllabic and other words facilitates the use of 
this metre. 

A great part of the Allegro and Penseroso is written in 
this metre : 



198 METRE. 

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures 
While the landscape round it measures. 

Well adapted for lively bustle, this metre does not suit a 
sober or quietly graceful subject ; and the necessity of a 
double rhyme is a serious practical obstacle to its continuous 
use in a long poem. Hence, the final unaccented syllable is 
often dropped, and the result is a truncated trochaic metre, 
which is more common than the full trochaic. The follow- 
ing is an instance : 

Russet lawns and fallows gray, 
Where the nibbling flocks do stray. 

The addition of a monosyllable at the beginning of a tro- 
chaic line allows us to scan the truncated trochaic as iambic : 

Labouring | clouds do | often | rest 
is trochaic ; 

The labouring clouds | do 6ft,en rest 

is iambic. 

But the extra syllable may perhaps be regarded as a remnant 
of the licensed addition called in early English a " catch " 
(see 129), which does not interfere with the scansion. In 
that case the prevalent trochaic effect will be maintained, 
and the second as well as the first line, in the following 
couplets, will be scanned trochaically : 

(a) Mountains on whose barren breast 
The | labouring clouds do often rest ; 

(b) Where perhaps some beauty lies 
The | cynosure of neighbouring eyes, 

(c) There let Hymen 6ft appear 

In | saffron robe with taper clear. 

Sometimes the "catch" is added to the first line in a 
couplet : 



METRE. 199 

When the merry bells ring round, 
And the jocund rebecks sound, 
To many a youth and many a maid 
Dancing in the chequer'd shade. 

Whether the line be called trochaic with a " catch," or 
iambic, matters little, provided that, in reading, the " catch" 
be subordinated. 

In the initial foot a dactyl is sometimes substituted by 
Milton for the trochee : 

(a) Till the livelong daylight fail : 
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale. 

This license is most common after a trochaic line with a 
" catch," or, if that name be preferred, after an iambic line : 

(b) And I stretch'd out all the chimney's length, 
Basks at the fire his hairy strength, 

And | crop-full out of doors he flings 
Ere the first cock his matin sings, 

(c) And | every shepherd tells his tale 
Under the hawthorn in the dale. 

(d) Or | sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child, 
Warble his native wood-notes wild. 1 

Of course, if we prefer to scan both lines iambically, 
the latter line in each couplet can be scanned as an iambic 
with an initial trochee. But to do this the words will have 
to be cut up sometimes rather unnaturally, and unlike the 
rest of the poem : 

Or sweet|est Shak|speare, Fanlcy's child, 
Warble | his najtive wood-|notes wild. 

1 It will not escape notice that in three instances the trisyllabic foot con- 
tains the or th', which is often dropped in Elizabethan poetry, and the fourth 
can be explained by elision, -le being elided before his. See Par. 137. 



200 METRE. 

In the middle of the trochaic verse of four accents no sub- 
stitute for the trochee is allowed, except (and this is very- 
rare) a monosyllabic foot : 

Toad that | under | cold | stone 
Days and | nights has | twenty- j one. 

Shakspeare. 

Such monosyllabic feet mostly contain r or some diphthong, 
so that they are almost pronounced like two syllables, e. .g, 
fire, dear. Our English o in cold, home, is really a diphthong, 
o followed by a slight it. But in the following extract mono- 
syllabic feet are introduced not containing diphthongs or r : 

A | hat of straw, like a swain, 
Shelter for the sun and rain ; 
Legs were bare, arms unclad 
Such attire this palmer had. 
His | face fair like Titan's shine ; 
Grey and buxom were his eyne. 
Whereout dropt pearls of sorrow; 
Such sweet tears Love doth borrow : 
Ruby lips, cherry cheeks ; 
Such rare mixture Venus seeks. 

Greene. 

The truncated trochaic when combined in alternate rhymes 
is often used in hymns, as, 

Trials must and will befall ; 
But with humble faith to see 
Love inscribed upon them all, 
This is happiness to me. 

The full metre and the truncated metre are also combined 
in hymns, and in the lighter kind of ballad narrative, as 

In her ear he whispers gaily, 
If my heart by si^ns can tell, 



METEE. 201 

Maiden, I have watch'd thee daily, 
And I think thou lov'st me well." 

Unmixed with other metre, and with rhymes following 

consecutively, the truncated metre is monotonous. Shak- 

speare makes Touchstone parody it : 

Sweetest nut hath sourest rind ; 
Such a nut is Eosalind. 

As You Like It, 

And he adds, "I'll rhyme you so eight years together, 
dinners and suppers and sleeping hours excepted ; this is the 
very false gallop of verses." 

135. The Iambic with five accents, without rhyme, 
is the. common metre of dramatists. The four- accent line is 
too short, and breaks the sense too frequently ; and the six- 
accent line is so long as to he tedious without rhyme ; or 
else, if broken by a pause, it frequently divides into two 
verses of three accents each. Hence Shakspeare as a rule 
reserves four-accent rhyming verses for the mouths of 
witches, fairies, etc. The six-accent verse is generally really 
two three-accent verses. (See 132.) The five-accent verse, 
as the mean between the two, is the common dramatic 
measure. 

136- Trisyllabic License. — The dramatic line, repre- 
senting as it does the language of life, approaches more 
nearly to prose, and enjoys more license than any other 
metre. Not merely is the trochee freely substituted for the 
iamb after any pause however slight: an extra syllable is 
also allowed at the end of a line or sentence, and in some 
cases even two extra syllables, as in 

I dare avouch it, sir. What, fifty followers I 

Lear. 



202 METRE. 

The license of using one extra syllable is not uncommon 
in Milton also. He more rarely uses two extra syllables: 

Thy words, with grace divine 
Imbued, bring to their sweetness no satiety. 

Paradise Lost. 

Extra syllables are also allowed in the other feet. This 
license is in strict accordance with the traditions of early 
English alliterative poetry, where no rule was laid down 
about the number of syllables in each line. But this license 
of Shakspeare is not unregulated by rule. The rule was 
the custom of Elizabethan language in which some unac- 
cented syllables in polysyllabic words, and also some mono- 
syllables when unaccented, e. g., the, with, in, were less 
distinctly pronounced than with us. These monosyllables 
were often written in contracted forms, th\ wi\ i, and by 
their lightness were peculiarly fitted for trisyllabic feet. 

The details of the Elizabethan dramatic metre can only be 
learned by special study. For modern drama the same rule 
holds good, that any extra syllables may be admitted that 
are felt not to interfere with the regular recurrence of the 
accent. Non-rhyming five-accent iambic metre is often 
called blank verse. As a general rule it may be stated that 
the modern blank verse is, for the most part, more strict 
than that of Milton, and Milton is more strict than Shak- 
speare, in limiting himself to ten syllables in a line. Milton 
uses capital, populous, as trisyllabic feet. But we also find 
in modern verse, — 

Even to | the last | dip of | the vanishing sail. 

Tennyson. 

Thro' all | his fu|ture ; but | now hdst\dy caught. 

lb. 



METEE. 203 

In 

The sound | of man|y a heav\ily galloping hoof, 

Tennyson. 

there is an evident intention to produce a subdued anapaestic 
effect, imitative of the sound of galloping. Otherwise two 
consecutive trisyllabic feet in a disyllabic measure are rare : 
they tend to give a trisyllabic effect to the whole line, and 
thus to destroy the metre. 

137. License of Elision.— A vowel termination before 
an initial vowel is often elided in Milton, and sometimes 
in modern poetry, especially in " many a" as in the last 
example of the last Paragraph : 

(a) Anguish | and doubt | and fear | and sorrow | and pain. 

(b) In glo { ry and power | to judge j both quick | and dead. 

So we ought to scan 

(c) Anger | and obsjtinacly and hate | and guile. 

(d) City or | suburban, stu|dious walks | and shades. 
So even Pope, — 

(a) End all dispute, and fix the year precise 
When British bards begin f immortalize. 

(b) Or damn all Shakspeare, like th' affected fool 
At court who hates whatever he read at school. 

138. License of Trochee.— It has been stated above 
(129) that in the initial foot, and after a pause, in iambic 
metre, a trochee instead of an iamb is allowed. A very slight 
pause in the dramatic and free iambic metres justifies a 
trochee ; even a long syllable, with the slight pause necessary 
for its distinct pronunciation, is sufficient. But some slight 



204 METRE. 

pause is necessary, and hence it may be laid down as a rule 
that in iambic metre one trochee cannot follow another. It is 
usual to quote as an exception, — 

Universal reproach far worse to bear. 

Milton. 

Such a line would be a monstrosity, and it is far more likely 
that Milton pronounced the word universal, perhaps influenced 
by the fact that the i is long in Latin. Words derived from 
Latin are accented somewhat capriciously ; compare aspect 
and respect. Similarly, Tennyson accents compensating as 
follows : 

To barter, nor compensating the want, 

Enoch Arden. 

which seems exactly parallel to Milton's universal. 
The line,— 

Down the | low turrjet stairs, pdl\pitdting, 

Tennyson. 

may perhaps be differently explained by treating the word 
stairs as a disyllable. The reason why a pause is neces- 
sary before a trochee seems to be this, that between two 
accented syllables the voice needs time to recover itself. 
Hence it is allowable to write, 

Be in | their flowjing cups \ freshly | remembered, 

because the emphatic word cups, long in quantity as well us 
emphatic, necessitates a kind of pause after it which makes 
a break between the two accents. But we could not so well 
write 

Be in their happing freshly remembered, 

Here the unemphatic -ness not being (98) between two un- 
accented syllables, should not receive the Metrical Accent. 



METRE. 205 

Hence we may lay down as a rule that a trochee in the 
middle of a verse must not follow an unemphatic accent. The 
following seem to be remarkable exceptions : 

Burn'd after them to the bottomless pit. 

Milton. 

Light from above from the fountain of light. 

lb. 

139. The Five-accent Iambic with rhyme is more 
strict than the same line when non-rhyming. In the sonnets 
and verses of Shakspeare, trisyllabic feet are not nearly so 
common as in his dramas. In part this may arise from the 
distinction of the subject. Dramatic verse will generally be 
more conversational, and given to slur syllables, than de- 
scriptive verse. But the rhyme in itself, giving a certain 
precision to the metre, imposes a restraint on the license 
of slurring ; the rhyming passages of Shakspeare's dramas 
are more regular than the non-rhyming passages. 

The rhyming couplet of Pope is the strictest specimen of 
this metre. Anything like irregularity in the lines would 
blunt the point of the epigram which almost each couplet 
contains. Such words as dev'l (compare the Shakspearian 
use and the Scotch de'il), punctu(a)l, mod' rate, tim'rous, 
(244) casuists, Mali met, diamond, vilet, amWous, simpering, 
have a syllable slurred ; but in all these words, with the ex- 
ception of the first three, the slurred syllable is scarcely pro- 
nounced even in modern English ; probably the syllable was 
still less audible in Pope's time. 

140. The Rhyming Iambic of Narrative Poetry 

of which Chaucer, and not Pope's "Iliad," furnishes the 



206 METRE. 

true type, differs materially from the rhyming couplet. The 
couplet is complete in itself, and requires a decided pause at 
its conclusion, marked by a decided rhyme. The narrative 
rhyme, on the other hand, is purposely unemphatic, in order 
not to give the effect of a pause. Yery often a couplet is 
broken by the introduction of a new paragraph at the begin- 
ning of the second line. The following is an instance of 
this : 

Then Jason rose, and did on him a fair 

Blue woollen tunic, such as folk do wear 

On the Magnesian cliffs, and at his thigh 

An iron-hilted sword hung carefully ; 

And on his head he had a russet hood ; 

And in his hand two spears of cornel -wood 

Well steeled and bound with brazen bands he shook. 

Then from the Centaur's hands at last he took 

The tokens of his birth, the ring and horn. 

Morris, Jason. 

Keats' " Endymion " is in the same metre, The rhyme- 
words are generally monosyllables, rarely trisyllables, and still 
more rarely disyllables. The accent on the final syllable of 
a disyllable, as remain, is too strong for the rhyme in this 
metre. The double rhyme is sparingly used. 

141. The Trochaic Five-accent Verse is very rare : 

Mountain | winds ! oh ! | wliither | do ye | call me ? 
Vainly, | vainly | would my | steps pur sue. 

The last verse is truncated. Of the truncated trochaic, the 
following is a specimen : 

L6, the | leader | in these | glorious | wars 
Now to | glorious | burial | slowly borne, 
Follow'd | by the j brave of | other | lauds, 
He on | whom from | both her | open | hands 



METKE. 207 

Lavish | honour | shower'd | all her | stars, 

(And) affluent, | Fortune | emptied | all her | horn. 

Verses have been written in the trochaic metre containing 
six, seven, and eight accents ; but they can mostly be divided 
into shorter verses of three or four accents. The eight- 
accent truncated verse is best entitled to be regarded as a 
distinct metre : 

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn : 
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn. 

Locksley Hall. 

142. The Spenserian Stanza, and Sonnet. — Iambic 
rhyming five- accent lines do not always rhyme in couplets. 
Different effects can be produced by placing the rhymes in 
different order, and repeating them more or less frequently, 
In the Spenserian stanza which consists of nine lines, the 
last an Alexandrine, the second line rhymes with the fourth, 
fifth, and seventh, the sixth with the eighth and ninth, and 
the first with the third. 

Shakspeare's Sonnet consists of fourteen lines, each of five 
accents. The first twelve rhyme alternately; the last two 
rhyme together. 

The Sonnet proper (on the pattern of Petrarch) consists of 
fourteen lines, each of ^ve accents, the whole being divided 
into two unequal parts, (a) the first of eight lines, (b) the second 
of six. (a). In the first part there are two four-line stanzas. 
In each stanza the two middle lines rhyme together, and the 
two outside lines rhyme together, as in the stanza of " In 
Memoriam :" and the second stanza repeats the same rhymes 
as the first, (b). The second part consists of two three-line 
stanzas. The first, second, and third lines in the first stanza 
rhyme severally with the first, second, and third lines in the 
second stanza. 



208 METRE. 

IWhen I consider how my light is spent, a. 

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, b. 

And that one talent which is death to hide b. 

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent a. 

I To serve therewith my Maker, and present a. 

My true account, lest He returning chide ; b. 

6 Doth God exact day-labour, light denied! ' b. 

I fondly ask ; but Patience, to prevent a. 

/That murmur soon replies : ' God doth not need c. 

1 } Either man's work or His own gifts ; who best d. 
(Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best : His state e. « 

■° | Is kingly ; thousands at His bidding speed, c. 

2 J And post o'er land and ocean without rest : d. 
(They also serve who only stand and wait.' e. 

Milton. 

In the second part of the sonnet great variety prevails. The 

six lines all rhyme in some way together ; but sometimes there 

are only two rhymes, instead of three, as in the following 

example : 

nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray 
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still ; 
Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill, 
While the jolly (116) hours lead on propitious May : 
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, 
First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill 
Portend success in love. 0, if Jove's will 
Have link'd that amorous power to thy soft lay, 
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate c. 

Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh : d. 

As thou from year to year hast sung too late c. 

For my relief, yet hadst no reason why : d. 

Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate, c. 

Both them I serve, and of their train am i". d. 

lb. 

Here the rhymes do not keep the regular order, and even 
where there are three rhymes, the order is often varied. 
Milton, however, only once allows a rhyming couplet to end 
the sonnet ; but Wordsworth often ends with a rhyming 
colet, as upin the following example : 



METRE. 209 

Scorn not the Sonnet : Critic, you have frowned, 

Mindless of its just honours ; with this key 

Shakspeare unlocked his heart ; the melody 

Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ; 

A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound ; 

With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief ; 

The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf 

Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned 

His visionary brow ; a glowworm lamp, c. 

It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery- land d. 

To struggle through dark ways ; and when a damp c. 

Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand d. 

The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew e. 

Soul-animating strains, — alas, too few. e. 

Two of the objects of a sonnet are (1) to preserve the 
unity of the poem, and not to suffer it to be broken up into 
a number of couplets ; (2) to diffuse the effect throughout the 
whole, and (as Wordsworth distinctly says) to avoid anything 
like an epigram at the end. Hence (1) the poem is so ar- 
ranged that it cannot possibly divide itself into halves, and 
as a further precaution, the beginning of the second section 
(underlined above) is often not separated by the slightest 
pause from the first section. 1 Hence also (2) Milton rejected 
as too epigrammatic the couplet with which Shakspeare 
always concluded his sonnets. 

Though there is no pause in either of the two sonnets of 
Milton quoted above, yet there is a change in the meaning. 
In the first sonnet, there is a change from the " murmur" 
to the " reply"; in the second, from statement to appeal, 
" Now timely sing." The change of metre suggests a change 
in thought, and therefore seems to make a pause appropriate. 
On the other hand, a pause, combined with a change of 

1 There is no pause at all in half of Milton's sonnets ; and when there is a 
pause, it is sometimes slight. 

14 



210 METRE. 

thought, endanger the unity of the poem by cutting it into 
two distinct parts. Thus it would appear that the sonnet 
attempts to combine two effects somewhat incongruous in 
their nature. Hence its peculiar difficulty. 



TRISYLLABIC METRE. 

143. Early Use of Trisyllabic Metre. — Although in 
early English alliterative poetry the number of syllables was 
not regulated by rule, yet for the most part the general effect 
is trisyllabic. When there is no catch, 1 the effect is tri- 
syllabic, with accent on the first syllable, i.e., dactylic. 

Lucifer with legionnes || lerned it in hevene. 

Piers the Plowman. 

This dactylic metre, when preceded by a catch of two sylla- 
bles, gives the effect of an anapaestic metre. When the 
catch is of one syllable, the effect is of mixed iambs and 
anapaests, or amphibrachs ; 2 but in any case the metre has a 
trisyllabic effect. 

Consequently, this trisyllabic, or, as it has been some- 
times called, tumbling metre, is very common in the earlier 
ballads. The following extract from Skelton of a description 
of Envy, written in the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
illustrates the irregularity of this metre : 

Whan other are glad, 
Than is hee sad, 
Frantiche and mad, 
His tonnge never styll 
For to save yll. 
Writhing and wringing, 
Biting and stinging. 

1 See paragraph 129. 

2 For explanation of these terms, see 97. 



METRE. 211 

Here the last two lines are dactylic, the rest of a mixed 
trisyllabic, disyllabic, and monosyllabic metre. 

144. The Effect of the Trisyllabic Metre when 
following the trochaic metre is to give a telling and merry 
effect. Thus : 

There I | couch, when | owls do | cry ; 

On the | bat's back | I do | fly, 

After | slimmer, | merri | If. 

Merrily, | merrily, | shall I live | now 

Under the | blossom that | hangs on the | bough. 

The Tempest. 
Conversely, the trisyllabic gives a merry beginning, fol- 
lowed by a serious trochaic end, in 

Merrily [ swim we, the | moon shines | bright 
Downward we | drift through the | shadow and | light. 
Under yon | rock the | eddies | sleep 
Calm and | silent, | dark and I deep. 

Scott. 1 

In the trisyllabic metre, it is not necessary that every foot 

should be trisyllabic. The first foot is, as often as not, 

disyllabic ; and disyllabic feet occur in the middle of the 

verse, but not at the end. The third foot is often disyllabic : 

Behold, | how they toss ] their torch\es on high, 

Dryden. 

And now, | in the grass ] behold | they are laid. 

Coivper. 

In the ballad metre, trisyllabic feet are often used, without 

interfering with the general disyllabic effect ; and the result 

is a certain free, merry, and almost rollicking effect, which 

suits the ballad style very well. It is only in this free 

disyllabic metre that a trisyllabic foot is frequent at the end 

of a verse. In most strict disyllabic metre, a trisyllabic foot 

1 This and the two preceding example are quoted from Guest's " History 
of English Rhythms. ;; 



212 METRE. 

at the end of the verse would injure the effect, though allowable 
in the middle. But see exception, p. 203. In the following 
example from a ballad whose general effect is disyllabic, the 
trisyllabic foot occurs even at the end of the verse : 

We | have a letjter, sayd A (dam Bell, 

To the justice we must | it bring ; 
Let | us in | our mess' age to do, 

That we | were againe | to the 



145. The Scansion of the Trisyllabic Metre must 
often be a matter of taste. In some poems, as in Hood's 
" Bridge of Sighs/' the effect is unquestionably dactylic, — 

Sisterly, brotherly, 
Fatherly, motherly. 

And so in a great part of the following : 

Over the mountains, 
Over the waves, 
Under the fountains, 
And under the graves. 
Under floods that are deeper, 

Which Neptune obey, 
Over rocks which are steeper, 

Love will find out the way. 
Anon. 

But here the fourth line may begin with an amphibrach, and 
the last four are decidedly anapaestic. Again, the line 

Dirck gallop'd, I gallop'd, we gallop'd all three. 

Browning* 
seems amphibrachic ; but 

Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place, 

lb. 

1 Even the strictest trisyllabic metre allows an accented syllable in a 
disyllabic, and sometimes a weak accent in a quadrisyllable, to be without 
the Metrical Accent, after a Metrical Accent: 

Have a still shorter date and die sooner than we*. — Cotcper. 

Are pleased to be kind, but I hate ostentation.— Goldsmith. 



METRE. 213 

is equally clearly anapaestic. So in 

Nse damn', nse gabbin but sighing, and sabbing, 
and 

Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaming, 

Lament for Flodden. 

the former seems amphibrachic, and the latter dactylic. 

The modern tendency, however, seems to be to write in 
anapaestic rather than in amphibrachic metre, and most 
modern trisyllabic poems are better scanned anapaestically. 
The necessity of the rhyme favours the anapaest. For, 
since the rhyme must be on the accented syllable, the 
amphibrachic termination requires a double, the dactylic 
termination a treble rhyme. The amphibrach and the dactyl 
seem suitable to express sorrow and tender pathos. 

The amphibrach is used in the suppressed melancholy of — 

Most friendship | is feigning, 
Most loving | mere folly ; 
Then heigh-ho, | the holly, 
This life is | most jolly. 

The following is, strictly speaking, anapaestic, but the 
effect is amphibrachic : 

(He) is gone on | the mountain, 
(He) is lost to | the forest, 
(Like) a siimmer-|dried fountain 
(When) our need was | the sorest. 

Scott. 

The dactyl is used in Hood's well-known poem, " The 
Bridge of Sighs": 

Take her up tenderly, 
Lift her with care, 
Fashioned so slenderly, 
Young and so fair. 



214 METRE. 

Here the dactyl is interspersed with monosyllabic feet. 
Unmixed, it would soon become monotonous. 

The trisyllabic metre is mostly now used for lighter poetry. 
Tennyson has however employed it for serious poetry in 
Maud and other poems. The following is an instance : 

Under the cross of gold 
That shines over city and river, 
There he shall rest for ever 
Among- the wise and the bold. 
Let the bell be toll'd. 

On the Duke of Wellington. 

In Dry den's " Ode on Alexander's Feast," the anapaBstic 
measure is effectively used to represent wild uproar, and is 
succeeded by the trochaic and iambic (with a trochaic effect) 
representing rapid action : 

The princes applaud -with a furious joy : 

And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy ; 

Thais | led the | way 

To | light him to his prey, 

And | like another Helen fired another Troy. 

146. The Anapaestic verse of two accents might 
often be written as a verse of four accents, as, 

'Tis the last rose of summer left blooming alone, 
All her lovely companions are faded and gone. 

But when there is a sectional rhyme, as in the passage 
quoted from Scott, in Paragraph 145, the division is clear. 

147. The Anapaestic verse of three accents is a 
favourite metre of Cowper's, sometimes alternately with the 
anapaest of four accents : 

The rose had been washed, just washed by a shower, 
Which Mary to Anna conveyed. 

The Rose. 



METRE. 215 

Sometimes unmixed, as in 

I am monarch of all I survey, 
My right there is none to dispute ; 
From the centre all round to the sea, 
I am lord of the fowl and the brute. 

Alexander Selkirk. 

148. The Anapaestic verse of four accents is the most 
common anapaestic metre. Since the first foot in English 
metre is peculiarly variable, and the anapaestic verse of four 
accents often divides itself naturally into two verses of two 
accents, it follows that the third foot has something of the 
license of the first. 

The _po/?|lars are felPd, [| farewell | to the shade, 
And noiv | in the grass || behold | they are laid. 

The Poplars. 

The' rose | had been wash'd, \\just icash'd | in a shower. 

The Rose. 

This license, however, is not so common in Cowper's 
lighter pieces. In Browning's " Good News from Ghent," 
the first foot is sometimes disyllabic, but every other foot 
is trisyllabic throughout the poem. 

149. Difficulty of distinguishing between Disylla- 
bic and. Trisyllabic Metre. — If the question were asked, 
of what metre is the following passage, 

Speak, speak thou fearful guest, 
Who, in rude armour drest, 

Longfellow. 

it would be impossible to reply with certainty, and we 

should probably incline to say " disyllabic," but the next 

line, 

Comest to daunt me, 



216 METRE. 

makes it almost certain that the metre is intended to be 
trisyllabic. 

This will show how easily the early English alliterative 
trisyllabic verse could pass into disyllabic verse. Take as 
examples, 

(a) To | &ind and to unMnd, || as the booke telleth. 

Piers the Plowman. 

(b) How he it | Zeft with Zove. || as our Zord hight. 

lb. 

As soon as a system of counting syllables was introduced, 
such verses might be scanned disyllabically : 

(«) To bind and to unbind, as the book telleth, 
(b) How he it left with love as our Lord hight. 

150. Classical Metres. — Attempts have been made (be- 
ginning asjiearly as the sixteenth century) with more or less 
of success, to introduce the hexameter, and other metres 
common in Greek and Latin, into English poetry. But 
these metres cannot be said as yet to be naturalised in 
English, and may best be studied in connection with the 
literature, whence they originated. In many of these at- 
tempts it is difficult to recognize any vestige of the metre 
which is aimed at. The following, 

Worn out | with iing|uish, toil, | and cold, | and hunger, 

would pass very well for a five- accent iambic line, whereas 
it is intended for something quite different. 

In Mr. Kingsley's "Andromeda," however, the hexameter 
is written both with correctness and spirit, and Mr. dough's 
" Bothie of Tober-na-voilich " is also correct in the main, 
and written with real ease and freedom. 



FOURTH PART. 



CHAPTER I. 

HINTS OX SELECTION AND ARKANGEMENT. 

151, Difference between Scientific and Non-Scien- 
tific Composition. — Composition may be (1) scientific, or 
(2) non-scientific (literary). Scientific -composition aims ex- 
clusively at clearness, preciseness, and completeness. 

Scientific composition is perfectly uniform in arrangement. 
Scientific description enumerates the characteristics of a 
phenomenon according to a fixed classification ; scientific 
reasoning proceeds according to the order of logic ; scientific 
narration according to chronological order. 

In non-scientific composition the arrangement is much less 
uniform, and affords room for judgment and skill. This 
chapter will state some of the principles which should 
govern it. 

First, non-scientific composition is .seldom exhaustively 
complete. It omits much that might be stated. We there- 
fore require a principle to determine what to admit and what 
to suppress — that is, a principle of Selection. 

Secondly, non-scientific composition does not aim merely 
at conveying truth. It is therefore not satisfied with clear- 
ness and preciseness. It aims sometimes at attracting the 
attention, sometimes at exciting the imagination, sometimes 



218 SELECTION AND ARRANGEMENT. 

at stimulating the feelings. These objects introduce new 
principles of Arrangement. 

152. Non-Scientific Composition may be subdivided 
into several different species. The humblest form of it is — 

(1). Conversation. — This, having no object but passing 
amusement, is often omitted in classifications of styles of 
composition. Nevertheless, conversation may be considered 
as an art governed by definite principles, and there have 
been persons who have attained special excellence in it. 

(2). Oratory. — By this is here meant all forms of pleading 
intended to determine special persons or bodies of people to 
special resolutions, e.g., parliamentary or forensic speeches. 
Though for the most part it refers to speeches, and does not 
refer to books, yet there are some written treatises which 
are comprised under it, e.g., pamphlets or books written to 
advocate particular measures ; on the other hand, it excludes 
some speeches, e.g., sermons, which are intended to influence 
men's general conduct, not their particular acts, and pane- 
gyrical or commemorative speeches, which are merely in- 
tended to give expression to feelings. 

(3). Didactic (Non-Scientific) Composition. — This 
name, for want of a better, may be given to the third class. 
It includes all compositions which have a practical object, 
but not like class (2) a limited and definite one, and, on 
the other hand, have not the precision of science. Some 
of these compositions may approach to the character of 
speeches, e.g., "Burke's Reflections on the French Revolu- 
tion; " they may have the form of speeches, e.g., Milton's 
" Areopagitica ; " they may be delivered as speeches, e.g., the 
sermons of Taylor or Tillotson. Others may approach the 



SELECTION AND ARRANGEMENT. 219 

character of scientific treatises, e.g., some of the works of 
Coleridge, or Mill's " Essay on Liberty." Others, again, may 
be narrative in form, provided the narration be true and 
seriously meant. Thus history and biography are to be re- 
garded as forms of didactic composition. The same may be 
said even of fictitious narrative, when it is used solely for the 
purpose of illustrating truth. The common characteristic of 
all compositions of this class is that they have an object 
which is not purely speculative, and yet is not limited to a 
special and immediate occasion. 

(4). Imaginative Literature, including Poetry. — By 
poetry is commonly understood metrical composition. But 
metrical compositions evidently belong for the most part to 
the larger class of compositions, the object of which is to 
gratify the imagination and creative power. Poems, then, 
and novels must here be classed together. This style, being 
largely imitative, includes imitation of conversation and 
oratory (styles 1 and 2). In novels there is generally much 
conversation, and often speeches are introduced. Dramatic 
poetry assumes the form of conversation throughout. Some 
of the most brilliant specimens of oratory in English may be 
quoted from the poets, e.g., the speech of Antony in " Julius 
Caesar," the speech of Belial in " Paradise Lost," B. 2. 

In old times, when some of these styles had not been 
clearly distinguished, historians were in the habit of intro- 
ducing speeches of their own composition, which they put in 
the mouths of statesmen, whose policy they were describing. 
Livy and Thucydides are examples. Such speeches, being 
imitative, belong to imaginative literature, while history 
itself belongs to didactic composition. The mixture of the 
two styles is not now tolerated. 



220 SELECTION. 

SELECTION. 

What ought to be suppressed in each of these four 
styles. — It is most important to know this. It was a maxim 
of Schiller that the master of style is shown rather by what 
he omits than by what he says. 

153. Conversation. — Of conversation as a means of 
transacting business or pursuing philosophical investigation, 
we do not treat here. It is only as a relaxation that con- 
versation can be considered as a literary style. 

It excludes whatever is abstruse. Though it admits argu- 
ment and dispute up to a certain point, as soon as the 
argument begins to turn upon nice distinctions, or become 
sustained and elaborate, in other words to demand a painful 
intellectual effort, conversation, properly speaking, is at an end. 
In like manner, when the dispute turns upon a matter of fact 
which can only be determined by evidence, it is generally 
unfit for conversation, since the evidence can rarely be pro- 
duced on the spot. 

It excludes deep passion, because it is unnatural to discover 
the deepest emotions before many people. As a general rule 
it excludes all tojrics that cannot be handled briefly and in 
short speeches. This is because long speeches are seldom felt 
as a relaxation either to speaker or hearers, and in excep- 
tional cases where it is otherwise, as in the case of Coleridge, 
since two such men seldom meet, conversation passes into 
lecture, i.e., into didactic composition. 

Good talkers are those who perceive readily whether a 
topic broached has or has not these characteristics, and 
easily think of such topics. Bad conversers broach the first 
topic that occurs to them, and find too late that it has in- 
volved them in abstruse dialectics, or differences that cannot 



SELECTION. 221 

be settled, or speech-making, or embarrassing personal reve- 
lations, etc. Admirable examples of the art of conversation 
may be found in Mr. Helps' books, "Friends in Council," 
"Realmah," etc. On the other hand, Landor's Imaginary 
Conversations, always admirable for composition, often 
trespass into the didactic style. 

154. Oratory. — This has been confined by our definition 
to speeches intended to influence particular decisions. Such 
speeches exclude, in a word, whatever is not likely to influ- 
ence the decision. Of this sort are — 

(a). Considerations that are subtle or far-fetched. — Though 
an audience may applaud these if they are skilfully pre- 
sented, they will be practically guided by plainer and coarser 
arguments. 

(b). Language and imagery that are subtle or pedantic. — In 
Taylor's " Edwin the Fair," the Pedant in addressing an 
audience of monks, begins figuratively — 

On Mount Olympus with the Muses nine 
I ever dwelt. 

Upon which the cry is, 

He doth confess it, lo ! 
He doth confess it ! Faggots and a stake ! 
He is a heathen ; shall a heathen speak ? 

(c). Considerations alien to the ivays of thinking of the 
assembly addressed. — Thus it has been said in the House of 
Commons of a scheme laid before it by a philosopher, " It 
is not of our atmosphere." For the same reason it has been 
remarked that lawyers seldom succeed in the House of 
Commons ; and Erskine, the greatest of advocates, excited 
nothing but contempt in Pitt, who ruled the House of 
Commons. Hence, also, the kind of oratory which suits a 



222 SELECTION. 

jury, i.e., an unskilled audience, differs from that which is 
likely to convince a judge, i.e., & skilled auditor. 

(d). Considerations of a higher moral tone than is likely 
to be appreciated by the assembly. — A speaker may feel it 
his duty to urge such considerations, but they are not ora- 
torical. An interesting example of oratory ineffective for 
this reason is the speech in justification of the murder of 
Caesar attributed by Shakspeare to Brutus. It appeals to 
abstract principles of morality quite beyond the compre- 
hension of the crowd, and therefore excites nothing but a 
cold respect for the speaker. Then follows Antony, with an 
appeal to feelings, some good, some bad, but actually present 
in the minds of the audience, and excites them to frenzy. 

(d). Imagery, phraseology, and rhythm, too rich and 
exquisite to be readily appreciated. — Specimens have been 
given above of the highest eloquence of English prose. 
Scarcely one of them belongs to oratory as here defined ; 
that is, scarcely one of them would be tolerated in the 
House of Commons, or in a law-court. Students must not 
be misled by the speeches of Burke so as to suppose that 
the richness and ingenuity of his style is properly oratorical. 
Burke was, in fact, little listened to in the House of 
Commons. The true oratorical style is much less elaborate 
and ingenious. The following is a specimen of the manner 
of Fox, the most powerful of English orators : 

" We must keep Bonaparte for some time longer at war, as a 
state of probation ! Gracious God, sir, is war a state of proba- 
tion 1 Is peace a rash system ? Is it dangerous for nations to 
live in amity with each other? Is your vigilance, your policy, 
your common powers of observation, to be extinguished by 
putting an end to the horrors of war ? Cannot this state of pro- 
bation be as well undergone without adding to the catalogue of 



SELECTION. 223 

human sufferings ? But we must^xmse / What ! must the bowels 
of Great Britain be torn out, her best blood spilt, her treasure 
wasted, that you may make an experiment ? Put yourselver — 
oh that you would put yourselves in the field of battle and learn 
to judge of the sort of horrors that you excite. In former wars 
a man might at least have some feeling, some interest, that 
served to balance in his mind the impressions which a scene of 
carnage and of death must inflict. If a man had been present at 
the battle of Blenheim, for instance, and had inquired the 
motive of the battle, there was not a soldier engaged who could 
not have satisfied his curiosity, and even perhaps allayed his 
feelings — they were fighting to repress the uncontrolled ambition 
of the Grand Monarque. But if a man were present now at a 
field of slaughter, and were to inquire for what they were fight- 
ing, ' Fighting ! ' would be the answer, ' they are not fighting, 
they are pausing.' c Why is tha,t man expiring? why is that 
other writhing in agony 1 what means this implacable fury 1 ' 
The answer must be, ' You are quite wrong, sir ; you deceive 
yourself. They are not fighting. Do not disturb them ; they 
are merely pausing. This man is not expiring with agony — that 
man is not dead — he is only pausing ! They are not angry with 
one another ; they have now no cause of quarrel, but their country 
thinks there should be a pause. All that you see, sir, is nothing 
like fighting — there is no harm, nor cruelty, nor bloodshed in it 
whatever ; it is nothing more than a political pause I It is merely 
to try an experiment, to see whether Bonaparte will not behave 
himself better than heretofore ; and in the meantime we have 
agreed to a pause in pure friendship ! ' And is this the way, sir, 
that you are to show yourselves the advocates of order? You 
take up a system calculated to uncivilize the world, to destroy 
order, to trample on religion, to stifle in the heart not merely 
the generosity of noble sentiment, but the affections of social 
nature, and in the prosecution of this system you spread terror 
and desolation all round you." 

What is to be chiefly remarked in this passage is — (1), the 



224 SELECTION, 

simplicity and homeliness of the thought it expresses ; (2), 
the carelessness of the language and the complete absence of 
rhythm, the orator evidently beginning his sentences without 
knowing how he would end them. To these two character- 
istics it owes very much of its persuasiveness. What you 
are asked to believe is not anything paradoxical, and the 
language used is so direct and natural that you suspect no 
artifice. Oratory, however, need not always be as common 
as this in thought and style. When the speaker has 
mastered the attention of his audience, he may gradually 
raise them above their ordinary selves, persuade them to 
take higher views than are natural to them, and prepare their 
ears for richly metaphorical and rhythmical language. The 
following passage from Burke reaches, perhaps, the limit of 
oratory proper : 

"Do you imagine that it is the Land Tax Act which raises 
your revenue, that it is the annual vote in the Committee of 
Supply which gives you your army, or that it is the Mutiny 
Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline ? No, surely 
no ! It is the love of the people, it is their attachment to their 
Government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in 
such a glorious constitution, which gives you your army and 
your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience without 
which your army would be a base rabble, and y« >ur navy nothing 
but rotten timber. All this, I know well enough, will sound 
wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and 
mechanical politicians who have no place amongst us — a sort of 
people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and 
material, and who therefore, far from being qualified to be 
directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn 
a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and 
rightly taught, these ruling and master principles, which in the 
opinion of such men as I have mentioned have no substantial 



SELECTION". 225 

existence, are, in truth, everything and all in all. Magnanimity 
in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom ; and a great empire 
and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our 
situation, and glow with zeal to fill our places as becomes our 
station and ourselves, we ought to auspicate all our public pro- 
ceedings in America with the old warning of the Church — 
Sursum corda ! "We ought to elevate our minds to the great- 
ness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called 
us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our 
ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious 
empire ; and have made the most extensive and the only 
honourable conquests, not by destroying, but by promoting 
the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race. 
Let us get an American revenue as we have got an American 
empire. English privileges have made it all that it is ; English 
privileges alone will make it all it can be. " 

155. Didactic Composition. — As oratory occupies itself 
with the matters that are occupying the minds of the audi- 
ence at the time, it admits a multitude of details which are 
sure to lose their interest very soon after the speech has been 
delivered. For this reason very few successful speeches are 
interesting to read. Of the matters discussed a very small 
proportion commonly have any intrinsic interest. Here is 
the great difference between oratory and didactic composi- 
tion. The latter is occupied, not with special measures on 
which a vote is about to be taken, but with principles of 
action, large courses of policy. Moreover, it is either not 
delivered to an audience at all, but simply published, or it is 
delivered to an audience whose minds are quite at leisure, 
and not preoccupied with the vote they have to give. All 
therefore that we have marked as inadmissible in oratory, 
subtleties of argument and style, reflections, and language 
elevated above the level of common life, are at home here. 

15 



226 SELECTION. 

On the other hand, much that is admissible in oratory be- 
comes inadmissible in didactic composition. 

(1). Details of merely ephemeral interest. — It is particularly 
in biography and history that it becomes important and diffi- 
cult to decide what is ephemeral and what is not. Macaulay 
remarks of the historian of British India, Orme, that " in one 
volume he allots on an average a closely printed quarto page 
to the events of every forty-eight hours." It may be ques- 
tioned whether in the later volumes of Macaulay's own history 
too much space is not given to parliamentary disputes which 
have lost their interest in a century and a half. Still more 
often is the same mistake made in biographies, where letters 
are preserved perhaps a century after the writer's death, 
which at the time they were written could only interest a 
personal friend ; nay, often were only written at all to dis 
charge a debt of courtesy. 

(2). Reflections that are within the reach of every one. — In 
oratory, as has been said, these are almost the only reflec- 
tions that are allowed. That war is a horrible thing, that 
we ought to be prepared against invasion, that Government 
ought not to be extravagant, that liberty is an inestimable 
treasure, that it is politic to be just, — these are topics which 
are always admissible in oratory, and not at all the less 
admissible because they have been urged a thousand times 
before. On the other hand, original reflections have no 
legitimate place in oratay, because we are guided in action, 
not by new and imperfectly known principles, but by prin- 
ciples that we have tested and made our own. But didactic 
composition, which aims not at determining special actions 
but at imparting new views, establishing and inculcating im- 
proved principles, admits only what is more or less novel, 
and suppresses, or passes as lightly as possible over, whatever 



SELECTION. 227 

is trite. It is partly because in what we read we expect 
originality, while a good speech avoids originality, that good 
speeches are generally disappointing when read. 

156. Imaginative Literature. — This differs principally 
from oratory and didactic composition in admitting fiction. 
Whatever is stated in oratory and didactic composition, is 
stated as true, or, if fiction is introduced, it is for the sake of 
the truth contained in it. But imaginative literature admits 
fiction as such, and for the sake of the pleasure it gives to 
the imagination. Not only does it invent characters and 
incidents, but it will assert speculative propositions with the 
greatest solemnity, which, nevertheless, are not meant to be 
taken as true, but simply as what the imagination likes to 
believe. For example : 

It is not vain or fabulous 
(Though so esteemed by shallow ignorance) 
What the sage poets taught by the heavenly Muse, 
Storied of old in high immortal verse, 
Of dire chimeras and enchanted isles, 
And rifted rocks, whose entrance leads to hell ; 
For such there be, but unbelief is blind. 

So the poetic merit of the following passage does not depend 
upon the truth of the doctrine conveyed in it : 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ; 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
And cometh from afar. 

This is an imaginative extension of philosophy, just as the 
supernatural, in which poets indulge so much, is an imagina- 
tive extension of experience. 



228 SELECTION. 

157. Limit of Fiction. — But poetry recognizes a limit 
to this license of creation. There must be some strong 
inducement to go beyond reality, otherwise such imaginative 
creation is recognized as childish. For example, in the 
Middle Ages, when the earth had been only partially ex- 
plored, and nature was little known, and therefore curiosity 
had free scope, tales of supernatural adventures in unknown 
lands were subjects for the greatest writers ; but now that 
curiosity of this sort has been appeased by real knowledge, 
they only interest children. The subject of the future life 
has always attracted poets, because on this subject there has 
been, at the same time, a strong general belief, and a strong 
sense of ignorance in details. 

But poetic creation, where there exists no curiosity, and no 
groundwork of belief, is recognized as frivolous. In the case 
of the "Pilgrim's Progress," these requisites were present; 
hence the success of the book. Southey's " Thalaba " and 
" Curse of Kehama" wanted both. As a mere sport of fancy, 
the supernatural may still be admissible, if sparingly r 
as in the " Rape of the Lock." 1 

158. Imaginative Literature dealing with History. 
— As fictitious matter is admissible in this style, so historical 
matter is often inadmissible. Epic poems and historical 
novels frequently err in admitting incidents because they are 
true, although they do not gratify the imagination. In the 
last book of " Paradise Lost" the poem degenerates into a 

1 Sometimes philosophy uses the supernatural in order to illustrate the 
interdependence of things In nature. To show how much in life d< i 
upon the size of human being**, we may imagine Lilliputians and Brob- 
dignags. To show what follows from the relation of human beings to parents, 
we may imagine a man made artificially, a Frankenstein. In these eases the 
supernatural is rigidly limited to a single point; the author hinds himself as 
it were to deduce only natural consequences from his supernatural postulate. 



SELECTION. 229 

historical summary. Lucan and Camoens may be mentioned 
as poets who have fallen into this error. Shakspeare in his 
historical plays, and Scott in his historical romances, may be 
mentioned as having treated history successfully from the 
imaginative point of view. Scott's plan is to put ficti- 
tious characters into the foreground, and to introduce his- 
torical incidents and characters only occasionally, and, as it 
were, by way of ornament. Shakspeare's success is mainly 
owing to the fact that English history in his age was still 
rather a tradition than a history, and hence allowed freedom 
of treatment. The great epic poems, founded upon facts be- 
lieved to be historical, have only been successful eithtr when 
the facts were really legendary, and not historical, as in the 
cases of the siege of Troy, the wanderings of iEneas, the 
lives of Arthur and Charlemagne, or else when history has 
been freely altered, as in Tasso's " Jerusalem Delivered." 

159. Unity of Feeling. — Great imaginative works have 
generally a prevailing tone pervading incident and character, 
which may be called unity of feeling. Hence everything 
is inadmissible which violates this. The " Rape of the 
Lock," for example, — one of the most finished works of 
imaginative art we have, — excludes intentionally everything 
which is not insignificant and frivolous. The introduction 
of any serious incident, any grave reflection, would have 
spoiled the work. When the spirits boast of influencing the 
female imagination, they say — 

Nay, oft in dreams invention we bestow 
To change a flounce or add a furbelow. 

The mention of anything so serious as true love would have 
been a jarring note. If statesmen are mentioned, something 
is added to lower the conception : 



230 SELECTION. 

Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom 
Of foreign tyrants, and of nymphs at home. 

So of a great queen in council : 

Here thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey, 
Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes tea. 

On the other hand, " Paradise Lost" excludes as rigidly 
every thing that is insignificant or frivolous ; what is merely 
graceful is not admitted unless it is also important; e.g., 
the light touches in the character of Eve are admitted only 
because she is the type of Womanhood. It has been ques- 
tioned whether the Paradise of Fools in Book III. is not 
a violation of the unity of tone. What the proper limit 
of this rule of exclusion is, has been a matter of dispute. 
French critics have held, for example, that comedy and 
tragedy ought never to be mixed. Shakspeare, however, 
habitually introduces a comic ingredient into his tragedies, 
and in his comedies he admits tragic passions, though 
perhaps not tragic incidents. (" Cymbeline " and " Winter's 
Tale" are not properly comedies: see below.) In one case 
he seems to have felt his subject to be too great to allow of 
mirth. In " Macbeth " there is only one short comic scene, 
which has furnished the subject of much discussion. 

160. Selection in Dramatic Poetry.— Dramatic poetry, 
we have said, is an imitation of conversation, and sometimes 
of oratory. Not everything, however, that is admissible in 
real conversation or oratory is admissible in the imitation 
of it. Heal conversation is extremely desultory and unme- 
thodical, and always contains much that would not be inte- 
resting to an audience of strangers. It is the business o^ the 
dramatic poet to diminish to the utmost this uninteresting 
element, and to give some unity to what is in reality ge 



SELECTION. 231 

rally wanting in unity. But in doing so lie must carefully 
preserve something of both characteristics of real conversa- 
tion, and carefully avoid giving to his imaginary conversation 
the appearance of a methodical discussion, really devised by 
one mind, and only for form's sake distributed among dif- 
ferent interlocutors. Here is a specimen from "Hamlet" 
which illustrates the unmethodical character conversation will 
assume when a principal interlocutor is pursuing a private 
train of thought with intense eagerness : 

Ham. Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. 

Hold you the watch to-night? 
All. We do, my lord. 

Earn. Armed, say you ? 
All. Armed, my lord. 

Ham. From top to toe ? 

All. My lord, from head to foot. 
Ham. Then saw you not his face ? 
Hor. Oh yes, my lord ; he wore his beaver up. 
Ham. What, looked he frowningly ? 
Hor. A countenance more 

In sorrow than in anger. 
Ham. Pale or red ? 

Hor. Nay, very pale. 

Ham. And fixed his eyes ilpon you? 

Hor. Most constantly. 

Ham. I would I had been there, 

Hor. It would have much amazed you. 
.60771. Very like, very like. Stayed it long? 
Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred, 
Mar. Ber. Longer, longer. 
Hor. Not when I saw it. 
Ham. His beard was grizzled, — no ? 
Hor. It was, as I have seen it in his life, 

A sable silvered. 
Ham. I will watch to-night ; 

Perchance 'twill walk again. 
Hor. I warrant it will. 



232 SELECTION. 

In the same way, real oratory, we have said, is seldom 
interesting except to the particular audience to which it is 
addressed. The dramatic poet, in imitating oratory, has to 
overcome this difficulty. His temptation will be to substitute 
didactic composition for oratory, that is, to fill the speech 
with generalities and subtleties fit for his own but unfit for 
his speaker's audience. But a skilful dramatist will know 
how to make oratory interesting without depriving it of its 
essential character, will attach it by particulars to the time 
and the place, and contrive to find reflections that are 
universally intelligible, and can yet be made permanently 
interesting. This talent Shakspeare has in an unrivalled 
degree. The following specimen of true dramatic oratory is 
from Taylor's ' ' Philip Van Artavelde ' ' : 

Sirs, ye have heard these knights discourse to you 

Of your ill fortune, telling on their fingers 

The worthy leaders ye have lately lost : 

True, they were worthy men, most gallant chiefs; 

And ill would it become us to make light 

Of the great loss we suffer by their fall ; 

They died like heroes ; for no recreant step 

Had e'er dishonoured them, no stain of fear, 

No base despair, no cowardly recoil : 

They had the hearts of freemen to the last, 

And the free blood that bounded in their veins 

Wa^ shed for freedom with a liberal joy. 

But had they guessed, or could they but have dreamed, 

The great examples which they died to show 

Should fall so flat, should shine so fruitless hero. 

That men should say, " For liberty they died, 

Wherefore let us be slaves ; " had they thought this, 

Oh, then, with what an agony of shame, 

Their blushing faces buried in the dust, 

Had their great spirits parted hence for heaven ! 

What! shall we teach our chroniclers henceforth 

To write that in five bodies were contained 



SELECTION. 233 

The sole brave hearts of Ghent ? which five defunct, 
The heartless town, by brainless counsels led, 
Delivered up her keys, stript off her robes, 
And so with all humility besought 
Her haughty lord that he would scourge her lightly ! 
It shall not be — no, verily ! for now 
Thus looking on you as ye stand before me, 
Mine eye can single out full" many a man 
Who lacks but opportunity to shine 
As great and glorious as the chiefs that fell. — 
But lo ! the Earl is mercifully minded ! 
And surely if we, rather than revenge 
The slaughter of our bravest, cry them shame, 
And fall upon our knees and say we've sinned, 
Then will my lord the Earl have mercy on us, 
And pardon us our letch for liberty ! 
What pardon it shall be if we know not, 
Yet Ypres, Courtray, Grammont, Bruges, they know ; 
For never can those towns forget the day 
When by the hangman's hands five hundred men, 
The bravest of each guild, were done to death 
In those base butcheries that he called pardons. 
And did it seal their pardons, all this blood ? 
Had they the Earl's good love from that time forth ? 
Oh, sirs ! look round you lest ye be deceived ; 
Forgiveness may be spoken with the tongue, 
Forgiveness may be written with the pen, 
But think not that the parchment and mouth pardon 
Will e'er eject old hatreds from the heart. 
There's that betwixt you been which men remember 
Till they forget themselves, till all's forgot, 
Till the deep sleep falls on them in that bed 
From w T hich no morrow's mischief knocks them up. 
There's that betwixt you been which you yourselves, 
Should you forget, would then not be yourselves ; 
For must it not be thought some base men's souls 
Have ta'en the seats of yours, and turned you out, 
If in the coldness of a craven heart 
Ye should forgive this bloody-minded man 
For all his black and murderous monstrous crimes? 
Think of your mariners, three hundred men, 



234 ARRANGEMENT. 

After long absence in the Indian seas, 

Upm their peaceful homeward voyage bound. 

And now, all dangers conquered as they thought, 

Warping the vessels up their native stream, 

Their wives and children waiting them at home 

In joy, with festal preparation made, — 

Think of tnese mariners, their eyes torn out, 

Their hands chopped otf, turned staggering into Ghent, 

To meet the blasted eyesight of their friends ! 

And was not this the Earl? 'Twas none but he ! 

No Hauterive of them all had dared to do it, 

Save at the express instance of the Earl. 

And now what asks he ? 



ARRANGEMENT IN ARGUMENT. 

Arrangement may be considered under the heads of Argu- 
ment and Narration, which are the two principal forms that 
composition assumes. Argument and Narration are subject 
to rules which differ somewhat according as they occur in 
compositions belonging to the four styles above described. 

161. Arrangement in Argument. — In conversation, 
argument scarcely admits of any arrangement, and therefore 
only such arguments are adapted for conversation as can 
be stated very briefly. In imaginative literature also, few 
special rules are required for argument. When argument 
occurs in this style it is generally put into the mouths of 
imaginary characters, and belongs therefore either to con- 
versation or to oratory. Accordingly, it adopts the rules to 
which it is subject in those styles. There are poems, in- 
deed, such as Pope's " Essay on Man," or Dry den' a 4 - Be- 
ligio Laici," in which the poet reasons throughout in his 
own person; but these compositions belong essentially to 
didactic composition, and not to imaginative literature 



ARRANGEMENT. 235 

They are exceptional cases in which metre, which is com- 
monly confined to imaginative literature, is adopted in 
didactic composition. 

Argument, therefore, may be said to belong almost ex- 
clusively to Oratory and Didactic Composition. 

162. Argument in Oratory. — It is the characteristic of 
oratory that it must be understood at once, and produce all 
its effect at once, since it attempts to influence a certain de- 
cision which is near at hand. The whole effort of the orator, 
therefore, is devoted to attaining (1) clearness, (2) force. 

The whole argumentation of a speech consists of a number 
of separate arguments which the speaker has to combine, 
and each argument consists of facts alleged in evidence, and 
a conclusion drawn from the evidence. 

To attain clearness, the speaker must make the connection 
between his facts and his conclusion perceived in each sepa- 
rate argument. To attain force, he must combine his argu- 
ments in such a way that they may be all apprehended and felt 
at once. 

In other words, he has two problems to solve : first, to 
form facts into an argument ; secondly, to compound argu- 
ments into an argumentation. 

State the conclusion you are going to arrive at before pro- 
ducing your facts. In didactic composition you may conceal 
your conclusion, and, as it were, entice your reader into it 
gradually. But in oratory this is scarcely possible, and 
nothing is so unendurable as a long statement of facts from 
which some conclusion is afterwards to be drawn. 

It is not enough to state the conclusion, and then 
produce the facts that prove it. The conclusion must be 
stated over and over again. It must be made, if possible, to 



236 ARRANGEMENT. 

penetrate the whole statement of evidence, so as to appear in 
every sentence of it. If this statement of evidence involves, 
as it often will, long quotations from documents, then there 
must be a recapitulation for the express purpose of bringing 
the facts into connection with the conclusion. 

The combining of arguments into an argumentation is done 
by an introduction and a close, an exordium and a peroration. 
In the one a survey is given of what the audience is to 
expect, and in the other a recapitulation, in which the argu- 
ments are rapidly enumerated and so concentrated upon the 
hearer's mind. 

But the speaker has not only to convey his arguments to 
an attentive audience, he has to make it attentive at the 
beginning, and prevent it from becoming inattentive during 
the progress of his speech. For this purpose all the wit and 
imagination he has will be serviceable. But also he must 
remember that the beginning is important, — the beginning of 
the whole speech, the beginning of each division of it. It is 
necessary to seize the attention at first ; when this has been 
done, the less interesting facts, arguments of minor import- 
ance, qualifications, concessions, may be cautiously intro- 
duced. 

The audience must be presumed, not only inattentive, but 
forgetful, and even dull. The most important points of the 
argument, therefore, must be stated pointedly, with antithesis 
or striking metaphor, so that they may be easily remembered. 
The following is an admirable example of facts and arguments 
powerfully concentrated, so as to force a particular conclu- 
sion upon the mind : — 

"The noble lord, after owning that we had no foreign alliances, 
had triumphantly spoken of unanimity, and congratulated gentle- 
men on that side of the House upon having aMied themselves with 



ARRANGEMENT. 237 

those who sat on the other. This was an assertion for which 
there was not the smallest foundation ; and it was impossible 
for him to state, in any phrase that language would admit of, 
the shock he felt when the noble lord ventured to suggest what 
was exceedingly grating to his ears, and he doubted not to the 
ears of every gentleman who sat near him. What ! enter into an 
alliance with those very Ministers who had betrayed their coun- 
try, who had been prodigal of the public strength, who had been 
prodigal of the public wealth, who had been prodigal of what 
was still more valuable, the glory of the nation ! The idea was 
too monstrous to be admitted for a moment. Gentlemen must 
have foregone their principles, and have given up their honour, 
before they could have approached the threshold of an alliance 
so abominable, so scandalous, and so disgraceful ! Did the noble 
lord think it possible that he could ally himself with those Minis- 
ters who had lost America, ruined Ireland, thrown Scotland into 
tumult, and put the very existence of Great Britain to the 
hazard 1 — ally himself with those Ministers who had, as they now 
confessed, foreseen the Spanish war, the fatal mischief which 
goaded us to destruction, and yet had from time to time told 
Parliament that the Spanish war was not to be feared 1 — ally 
himself with those Ministers who, knowing of the prospect of a 
Spanish war, had taken no sort of pains to prepare for it 1 — ally 
himself with those Ministers who had, when they knew of a Spanish 
war, declared in Parliament, no longer ago than last Tuesday, 
that it was right for Parliament to be prorogued, for that no 
Spanish war was to be dreaded, and yet had come down two 
days afterwards with the Spanish rescript ] — ally himself with 
those Ministers who, knowing of a Spanish war, and knowing 
that they had not more than thirty sail of the line ready to send 
out with Sir Charles Hardy, had sent out Admiral Arbuthnot to 
America with seven sail of the line, and a large body of troops 
on board 1 — ally himself ivith those Ministers who, knowing of a 
Spanish war, had suffered seven ships of the line lately to sail to 
the East Indies, though two or three ships were all that were 
wanted for that service, and the rest might have stayed at home 



238 ARRANGEMENT. 

to reinforce the great fleet of England ? — ally himself with those 
Ministers who, knowing of a Spanish war, and knowing that the 
united fleets of the House of Bourbon consisted of at least forty, 
perhaps fifty, and possibly sixty sail of the line, had suffered Sir 
Charles Hardy to sail on Wednesday last, the day before the 
Spanish rescript was, as they knew, to be delivered, with not 
thirty sail of the line, although, if he had stayed a week longer, 
he might have been reinforced with five or six, or, as Ministers 
themselves said, seven or eight more capital ships ? To ally 
himself with men capable of such conduct would be to ally him- 
self to disgrace and ruin. He begged, therefore, for himself and 
his friends, to disclaim any such alliance; and he declared he was 
the rather inclined to disavow such a connection, because, from 
the past conduct of Ministers, he was warranted to declare and 
to maintain that such an alliance would be something worse than 
an alliance with France and Spain ; it would be an alliance with 
those who pretended to be the friends of Great Britain, but who 
were in fact and in truth her worst enemies." — Fox. 

It is further to be remembered that even an attentive 
audience finds a certain difficulty in following a close argu- 
ment. It is therefore found necessary to adopt contrivances 
for making language clearer than it is as commonly used. 
Of these the principal is a perpetual repetition in long 
sentences of some important or connecting words. This 
subject has been treated above. See Pages 122, 123. 

163. Argument in Didactic Composition — Such 
contrivances, though necessary in oratory, are not wanted 
in treatises intended to be read at leisure, and admitting 
of being read over again. And, in becoming unnecessary, 
they become positive faults and hindrances to persuasion. 
A rhetorical speech is one adapted to persuade, but a book 
is generally the less persuasive for being rhetorical. 



ARRANGEMENT. 239 

In didactic composition, argument should approach the 
character of scientific demonstration, and should borrow in 
the main its arrangement. But, 

(1.) It should suppose the reader capable indeed of follow- 
ing a scientific demonstration, but requiring some helps. It 
should answer objections, furnish illustrations, and in fact 
render such assistance as a tutor might render in explaining 
a scientific theorem to a pupil. 

(2.) It should affect moderation in language. The orator 
seeks forcible expression to produce an immediate effect, but 
the writer should always rather understate than overstate his 
case. Unmeasured praise or blame may carry away an 
audience, but a reader will suspect exaggeration. 

(3.) It should be careful to make all reasonable conces- 
sions to the opposite side. An orator has seldom space to 
do this. He must be content to bring out the merits of 
his own case. But as there is always something to be said 
on the other side, a reader, when he sees a case made out 
too clearly, has time to suspect that the opposite case has 
been suppressed, and will not give full confidence to his 
author unless he finds the opposite case exhibited with 
scrupulous and anxious candour. Macaulay sometimes fails 
to convince in consequence of forgetting this rule, and of 
trying to overwhelm an opponent in the rhetorical fashion. 



ARRANGEMENT IN NARRATION. 

Narration is of secondary importance in oratory, as argu- 
ment is in imaginative literature. Narration belongs princi- 
pally to didactic composition and to imaginative literature, 



240 ARRANGEMENT. 

164. Narration in Oratory — In oratorical narration 
everything is subordinate to clearness. Where the incidents 
are numerous and minute, a hearer's memory is apt to fail 
him. To assist it, the orator will use (1) Omission. That is, 
he will omit as many minute incidents as he can spare. (2) 
Emphasis. That is, he will distinguish the more important 
incidents by marked prominence, (3) Grouping. That is, 
he will group them as much as possible by likeness in kind, 
and as little as possible by mere chronological order. 

Oratorical narration is always subordinate to argument. 
The conclusion which it is intended to establish should, 
therefore, serve to bind together the different incidents intro- 
duced. 

In the following account of the changes which followed the 
accession of George III., remark how the notion of a court 
cabal is introduced to explain all the incidents, and how almost 
every sentence either begins or ends with it : — 

"It happened very favourably for the new system, that under 
a forced coalition {i.e., between Pitt and Newcastle) there 
rankled an incurable alienation and disgust between the parties 
which composed the administration. Mr. Pitt was first attacked. 
Not satisfied with removing him from office, they endeavoured 
by various artifices to ruin his character. The other party 
seemed rather pleased to get rid of so oppressive a support, 
perceiving that their own fall was prepared by fcis, on<f involv< 
it. Many other reasons prevented them from daring to look their 
true situation in the face. To the great Whig families it was ex- 
tremely disagreeable, and seemed almost unnatural, to oppose 
the administration of a prince of the house of Brunswick. Day 
after day they hesitated, and doubted, and lingered, expecting 
that other counsels would take place ; and were slow to be 
persuaded that all which had been done by the cabal was the 
effect, not of humour, but of system. It was more strongly 



ARRANGEMENT. 241 

and evidently the interest of the neiv court faction to get rid of 
the great Whig connexions than to destroy Mr. Pitt. The 
power of that gentleman was vast indeed, and merited ; but 
it was in a great degree personal, and therefore transient. 
Theirs was rooted in the country ; for, with a good deal less of 
popularity, they possessed a far more natural and fixed influence. 
Long possession of government, vast property, obligations of 
favours given and received, connexion of office, ties of blood, of 
alliance, of friendship (things at that time supposed of some force), 
the name of Whig, dear to the majority of the people, the zeal 
early begun and steadily continued to the royal family, — all 
these together formed a body of power in the nation which icas 
criminal and devoted. Tlie great ruling principle of the cabal, 
and that which animated and harmonized all their proceedings, 
how various soever they may have been, was to signify to the 
world that the Court would proceed upon its own proper forces 
only, and that the pretence of bringing any other into its service 
was an affront to it, and not a support. Therefore, when the 
chiefs were removed, in order to go to the root, the whole party 
was put under a proscription so general and severe as to take 
their hard-earned bread from the lowest officers, in a manner 
which had never been known before, even in general revolutions. 
But it was thought necessary effectually to destroy all depend- 
encies but one, and to show an example of the firmness and 
rigour with which the new system was to be supported." — Burke. 

165. Narration in Didactic Composition. — In oratory, 
the number of incidents to be narrated is seldom so large 
as to embarrass the speaker ; but in didactic composition 
it is different. One great subdivision of didactic com- 
position is history. In the history of a country during 
any considerable period about which the documents are 
numerous, the number of facts which might be introduced 
is almost infinite. One of the greatest qualities of a historian 
is the power of dealing with vast multitudes of facts in such 

16 



242 ARRANGEMENT. 

a way as to bring them well within the range of the reader's 
understanding and memory. We have already spoken of the 
suppression of unnecessary facts in history. Not less im- 
portant are (1) the proper subordination of unimportant to 
important facts ; (2) the subdivision of the whole field 
lying before the historian both into departments according to 
subject-matter, and into periods according to time. 

It is the more difficult to determine the relative importance 
of historical incidents because it varies so much with their 
nearness to the present time. Incidents that are near acquire 
importance by the personal interest that many readers may 
have in them, and by the degree of that interest. Incidents 
that are distant are made important by the consequences that 
have flowed from them. Most historians, therefore, have to 
apply to the incidents they describe a scale of importance 
entirely different from that which was applied by the con- 
temporary writers from whom they draw their information. 
For example, a war of the most commonplace kind is far 
more interesting so long as it lasts, and for some little time 
after it has come to an end, than the creation of the most 
important new institution. But when wars have become 
remote in time, they commonly become uninteresting. Yet, 
historians, finding much fuller accounts of them than of 
peaceful incidents, are under the greatest temptation to make 
them too prominent. Livy's history is an example, in which 
almost everything that we most wish to know about ancient 
Rome is unsatisfactorily recorded, while the narrative is 
overloaded with a quantity of unnecessary military details. 

What is true of incidents is true also of characters. 
Characters that arc in the foreground of the political stage 
attract the attention of history, not because of their intrinsic 
importance, but because of their prominence. Thus the his- 



ARRANGEMENT. 243 

torian of the early years of George III. might scarcely allude to 
Arkwright or Wedgewood, who permanently affected English 
industry ; or to Wesley, who powerfully affected the national 
character ; while he might tell us much of Bute and Henry Fox, 
whose influence comparatively was transient and superficial. 
Evidently a historian cannot but fall into mistakes of this 
kind unless he reflects carefully upon the object he has in 
view. The earliest histories were little more than lists of re- 
markable occurrences drawn up in the annalistic form. The 
modern theory of history is that it should be a collection of 
facts calculated to throw light upon the laws regulating the 
evolution of societies. Most historians place themselves 
somewhere between these two extremes, and arrange their 
narratives partly on one principle and partly on the other. 

Moreover, a long narrative requires subdivision. It is 
necessary to distinguish periods in history. If this is well 
done, the reader's memory and power of conception are 
greatly assisted. Here, again, a false method is very apt to 
present itself. In monarchical countries the accessions of 
the successive sovereigns are the dates chiefly used. Where 
the monarchy is despotic, this is justifiable, though seldom 
quite satisfactory. In the age of Louis XIY., the activity, and 
in that of Louis XV., the inactivity of the sovereign stamped 
the period in French history more than any other single cir- 
cumstance. But the English sovereigns since Anne have not 
had this importance, and probably the principal reason why 
most people conceive the eighteenth century of England much 
less clearly than the seventeenth is that in the seventeenth 
century the sovereigns did determine their age, and in the 
eighteenth did not. 

The following are the headings of chapters in Mommsen's 
" History of Rome," vol. ii. : — 



244 ARRANGEMENT. 

u The subject provinces till the time of the Gracchi. — The Re- 
form Movement and Tiberius Gracchus. — The Revolution and 
Caius Gracchus. — The Regime of the Restoration. — The Nations 
of the North. — Attempt at Revolution by Marius, and Attempt 
at Reform by Drusus. — Insurrection of the Italian Subject 
Population and Sulpician Revolution. — The East and King 
Mithradates. — Cinna and Sulla. — Sulla's Constitution. — The 
Commonwealth and its Economy. — Nationality, Religion, Edu- 
cation, Literature, and Art." 

Such a classification, assuming it to be correct, is much 
more luminous and useful than " From Accession to Death 
of Augustus," " From Accession to Death of Tiberius," 
etc., which tells us nothing about the course of events in 
general. 

166. Narration in Imaginative Literature. — Imagi- 
native literature is chiefly narrative. The different forms of 
imaginative narrative are novels, romances in prose and verse, 
idylls in prose and verse, epic poems. 

In novels, the interest turns chiefly on character and 
manners. Thackeray's " Vanity Fair " is an example of 
this. Metrical novels are not a recognized form of com- 
position, though the experiment has been tried ; for instance, 
by Mrs. Browning in " Aurora Leigh." 

In romances, character and manners are subordinate to 
adventure. Example, — " Ivanhoe." Roman* very 

frequently metrical. What we call a ballad is generally a 
short metrical romance. The revival of the English ballads 
by Percy led to an attempt, in which all the greatest poets 
of the succeeding age united, to create a literary style 
in which the metre and manner of the ballad were adapted 
to long and sustained romances. Examples are — Coleridge's 
" Christabel," Scott's " Lay of the Last Minstrel," " Mar- 



ARRANGEMENT. 245 

raion," " Lady of the Lake," etc.; Byron's "Giaour," 
"Bride of Abydos," " Siege of Corinth," etc. ; Wordsworth's 
"White Doe of Rylstone," the tales in Moore's " Lalla 
Rookh." 

Idylls x are pictures of rustic life, in which the incidents are 
selected, not for their intrinsic interest, nor as illustrations 
of character, but as specimens of the kind of life led, or 
supposed to be led, by rustics. The best example in prose 
is the " Yicar of Wakefield ;" in verse, Wordsworth's "Mi- 
chael," Tennyson's " Enoch Arden." 

In epic poems the incidents are selected for their great- 
ness, for their importance to a particular nation, or to the 
human race. Character may play a considerable part, but 
does not generally play the principal part in an epic poem. 
The true hero of an epic poem is Providence. In the iEneid 
the character of the hero seems intentionally kept down ; and 
though Milton has been accused of making Satan his hero, 
he himself announces that his object is to assert eternal 
Providence. 

Dramatic poems are not narrative in form, or rather the 
narration is despatched summarily in short directions to the 
reader or stage-manager, and is made entirely subordinate to 
the conversations of the dramatis persona. Nevertheless the 
dramatic writer, quite as much as any narrator, has to con- 
sider the arrangement of his incidents. 

The word dramatic simply refers to a peculiarity in the 
mode adopted of presenting the incidents. Every dramatic 
poem therefore may, or rather must, belong also to one of the 
kinds of imaginative narration above described. It must be 
either a novel or a romance, or an idyll, or an epic poem. 

1 The word is less commonly applied to any short descriptive poem. 



246 ARRANGEMENT. 

But plays differ from novels and romances in the same 
way as oratory differs from didactic composition, i.e., they 
are intended to be delivered in public rather than to be read, 
and must therefore produce their effect at once. Conse- 
quently it is found to be necessary to make the interest in a 
play stronger and simpler. A play requires incident more 
absolutely than a novel, and it has* been usual to make a play 
depend definitely either upon pathos or humour. In most 
novels the grave and the gay are freely mixed, but plays as a 
general rule are either tragedies or comedies. Nevertheless 
there are conspicuous exceptions. " Cymbeline " and " The 
Winter's Tale " are neither tragedies nor comedies, but 
simply dramatic stories. Neither the tragic nor the comic 
element can be said perceptibly to predominate in them. 
We might call " Hamlet" a novel, because the interest lies 
predominatingly in character; and " The Tempest" a 
romance, because incident predominates (though Shakspeare's 
genius leads him to introduce striking studies of character 
everywhere). 

Some plays, again, are idylls. Examples : " The Faithful 
Shepherdess," " Comus," " As You Like It." 

Lastly, others may be called epic poems. Hallam calls 
" Macbeth " epic ; and the two parts of " Henry IV.," taken 
together with " Henry V.," describing the growth and gra- 
dual course to victory and fame of a national hero, make the 
nearest approach to a national epic that England possesses. 

167. Construction of a Plot. — In imaginative narration, 
since the incidents are more or less invented by the narrator, 
we have to consider the rules, not merely for the arrange- 
ment, but for the invention of them, — in other words, rules 
for the construction of a plot. 



ARRANGEMENT. 247 

All plots must be interesting, but there are different kinds 
of interest belonging to the different sorts of imaginative 
composition. To mix the different kinds of interest so as to 
leave a confused impression on the mind is the commonest 
mistake in the construction of plots. For example, Addison 
in his " Cato," following the French school, introduces love- 
stories. Now the history of Cato is interesting, and love 
stories are interesting, but Cato's character — nay, the Roman 
character in general — was so entirely foreign to love in the high 
sentimental sense of the word, that the two sorts of interest 
cannot be brought together without an extreme sense of 
incongruity. It therefore never occurs to Shakspeare to 
introduce love into his " Julius Caesar," though he finds 
room for the conjugal heroism of Portia. 

It must be admitted, however, that this rule of keeping 
apart the different kinds of interest has been very little ac- 
knowledged in English literature. As we have mixed tragedy 
and comedy, so we have very freely mixed the romance and 
novel. As the national genius for character- drawing is very 
marked, incident without character does not often satisfy us. 
And in general our writers, rightly or wrongly, have not 
shown the sensitiveness that has been shown by the writers 
of some other nations on the subject of unity of design. See 
above, p. 280. 

168. Different kinds of interest.— Incidents are in- 
teresting either in themselves or indirectly, e.g., for the 
light they throw on character, or for the consequences that 
flow from them. Narrations that depend on the intrinsic 
interest of incidents are, as we have said, called romances ; 
sometimes we use the phrase " novels of plot." 

169. Incidents are interesting in themselves, 



248 ARRANGEMENT. 

(1), when they are strange or marvellous. Fairy tales 
are of this kind, and many of the mediaeval romances. But 
mere marvellousness is interesting chiefly to children or 
uncivilized nations. "When great writers deal in the marvel- 
lous they commonly add something of a higher kind. Caliban 
in Shakspeare is interesting, not simply because he is mar- 
vellous, but because of the subtlety with which his character 
is drawn. 

(2), when they introduce the elements of danger and 
heroism. Hence the great prominence of war in works of 
imagination, from the Iliad downward. As civilisation 
advances, the interest of this also wears off to a certain 
extent. It becomes necessary here also to add some season- 
ing. Scott, in whom the old Homeric delight in warlike 
adventure remained wonderfully fresh, adds, in those of his 
novels which interest grown people most, either religous 
enthusiasm, as in "Old Mortality," or wild manners and wild 
scenery, as in " Waverley," and in his mediaeval romances a 
certain theatrical pomp of costume. In the " Westward Ho ! " 
of Mr. Kingsley the love of adventure is exalted by religious 
feeling. 

(3), when they are unexpected. The reader's attention 
may be kept awake by creating in him a perpetual wonder 
and curiosity to know what is coming next. For this pur- 
pose disguises, strong family likenesses, Machiavellian or 
Jesuitical intrigues, are used. This sort of machinery also 
soon wears out, and few imaginative works of a very high 
class have admitted it. Miss Austin's " Emma" may be cited 
as an instance of a mystification kept up with great success, 
and without any aid from such machinery. 

70. Incidents that illustrate character.— Incidents 
are interesting indirectly when they bring out character. It 



AEEANGEMENT. 249 

is of incidents of this kind that the plots of all novels and 
all plays of a high order are composed. 

But a great distinction is to be drawn between plots that 
are intended to illustrate human nature in general and those 
that are intended to illustrate the peculiarities of individual 
character. The former might perhaps be better classed with 
romances, because for the most part the incidents which are 
to throw new light upon human nature in general must be 
strange and exceptional ones. A good example of this style 
is " Robinson Crusoe." It is a study of what thoughts 
would be excited in the mind of a man isolated for a long 
time from his kind. But, as it has been remarked, Robinson 
Crusoe has no peculiarity of character, nothing which 
differences him from other people. It is therefore a study of 
human nature in general, not properly speaking a study of 
character. The exceptional incident was necessary to make 
" Robinson Crusoe" interesting. And by similar exceptional 
incidents any character may be made interesting. We may 
thus imagine tragedies full of passion and human interest, 
without any character at all. Each personage might speak 
naturally up to a certain point, yet none of them charac- 
teristically. For example, Evander's speech in bidding fare- 
well to Pallas has often been praised as natural. It is a 
natural utterance of a father sending his son to the wars, 
but it has nothing characteristic of that particular father. 

But though human nature in general cannot be made 
interesting but by putting it in exceptional and affecting 
situations, individual character can be portrayed by incidents 
of the commonest kind. The traits of a strongly marked 
character are visible in every word and movement. Novels 
of character, therefore, often confine themselves to incidents 
in themselves very trivial, but there is room for great art in 



250 ARRANGEMENT. 

the selection of such incidents. The chief incidents in Jane 
Austen's novels are meetings in shops, or at balls or picnics, 
and much the same may be said of Thackeray's novels. In 
Thackeray it is remarkable that he avoids the great incidents 
that fall in his way, and confines himself to tracing the small 
domestic consequences of them. In "Vanity Fair," for 
example, the novelist stays at Brussels while the battle of 
Waterloo is being fought. 

But character may be displayed by great incidents as well 
as by small. And on the stage great incidents are looked 
for. Most plays, therefore, may be regarded as novels with 
more incident than is necessary in a novel, and sometimes 
as romances with much of the novel added. Shakspeare, 
though a master of the art of delineating character by slight 
touches, always introduces strong and stirring incident as well. 

171. Idyllic Incidents. — Incidents may get a special 
kind of interest from exhibiting the simplicity of country 
life. When civilisation becomes complicated, and concen- 
trates itself in cities, there arises by reaction a peculiar 
pleasure in contemplating the simple, half animal life that 
has been left behind, and this pleasure has left a great 
mark on literature. In idylls, the plot is for the most part 
simple, as most idylls are short. 1 Great incidents are entirely 
out of place in the foreground of an idyll, but in the back- 
ground they may advantageously be introduced in order to 
bring out the tranquillity and simple uniformity of rustic 
life the more strongly by contrast. In the great German 
idyll, " Hermann and Dorothea," the wars of the French 
Kevolution are used in this way with great effect Nor 
should the incidents be intricate, or such as to excite 

1 From Greek " eidullion " — " a little image." 



ARRANGEMENT. 251 

curiosity, for this is alien from the purpose of an idyll, nor 
such as to illustrate character in any special way. So far 
as human beings are introduced, they are introduced for 
the purpose of exhibiting neither individuality nor general 
humanity, but rustic humanity ; the incidents, therefore, 
should be so contrived as to bring out the differences between 
the rustic and the citizen. 

" The Yicar of Wakefield " has a world-wide reputation in 
this style, a reputation deserved by the exquisiteness of par- 
ticular scenes. But the plot is marked with all Gold- 
smith's heedlessness. The improbabilities of it have often 
been pointed out. Here it is more in place to note the 
entire want of unity of tone, and the reckless mixture of 
different kinds of interest. By the side of the rustic family 
so admirably sketched, we have a picture, which seems 
transferred from another story, of the hardships of a literary 
life in London, an essay on forms of government and the 
advantages of monarchy, a scene from a comedy in which 
a footman plays the part of his master, and, finally, a 
number of startling incidents and unexpected discoveries 
belonging to a novel of plot. By way of contrast, this 
plot should be compared with the plot of " Hermann and 
Dorothea." 

172. Epic Incidents. — Lastly, incidents may be made 
interesting by bringing out and insisting upon their im- 
portance. This is the characteristic of narratives that are 
properly epic. The plot of the iEneid illustrates this well. 
For the plot of a romance it would be very uninteresting, 
for the incidents have little that is striking in them ; nor 
have they any interest as illustrations of character, except 
in the case of Dido, and in a less degree of Camilla ; nothing 
can be more insipid than the character of JEneas himself. 



252 ARRANGEMENT . 

But they would have for Romans, and for Romans who 
believed in them, another kind of interest, and it is this 
which Virgil keeps in view. Upon these adventures of 
iEneas, often so uninteresting in themselves, depends the 
founding of Rome and the Roman empire. " Tantae molis 
erat Romanam condere gentem." It is as the instrument of 
Providence that iEneas is regarded throughout, and for that 
reason the only character given to him is that of passive 
obedience to divine direction. 

The business of the epic poet is to keep his hand on the 
providential clue to the maze of events. His capital mistake 
would be to mix up incidents merely interesting or romantic, 
or illustrative of character, with the fatal, properly epic, 
incidents. If he can contrive to make these properly epic 
incidents romantic at the same time, so much the better. 
The story of Dido is very romantic and passionate, yet it is 
not the less properly epic. The question at issue is not 
merely the fate of Dido herself, but whether Carthage or 
Rome shall be the centre of empire ; what seems the b 
ness of iEneas is seen to be the irresistible force of the 
fate that draws him; the rage of Dido is a poetical fore- 
shadowing of the Punic Wars. 

It sometimes happens that there is a story in which a 
whole nation feel profoundly interested, a story of some crisis 
to which they trace their freedom, or happiness, or greatness. 
If a poet arises who can describe this worthily, we have an 
instance of a thoroughly successful epic poem. In such an 
epic there will be found nothing of the novel or romance, no 
effort to amuse or interest the reader, for the reader is pre- 
sumed to be profoundly interested already. If invention is 
used, it will be used sparingly, and the tradition, as generally 
believed, will be respected. The narration will be deliberate 



ARRANGEMENT. 253 

and serious, and means will be taken to open long vistas of 
future and past events, so as to make the critical character 
of what is supposed to be taking place in the present more 
evident. Such are the narrative of the fall of Troy put into 
the mouth of JEneas, and the vision of Roman heroes to 
which Anchises acts as showman ; such in " Paradise Lost " 
the narrative of the fall of the angels by Eaphael, and that of 
the course of human history by Michael. 

But of completely successful epics, accomplishing what 
was deliberately attempted, there are scarcely any examples. 
What the poet feels deeply his reader often feels much less 
deeply, and therefore most epic poems are considered 
heavy. Moreover, the critical spirit which is now applied 
to history makes epic poetry more than ever difficult. Yirgil 
could not probably have written the iEneid had he believed 
the story of iEneas to be untrue, and the critical spirit will 
not even tolerate the mixture of fable with truth. 

"Whether future poets will succeed in treating real history 
in the epic manner, renouncing the right of invention entirely, 
but still finding scope in the selection, interpretation, and 
appreciation of incidents according to their historical import- 
ance, may be left an open question. Carlyle has tried this 
in his " History of the French Revolution, " which resembles 
an epic poem more than any other work of this age. 



APPENDIX. 



HINTS ON SOME EERORS IN REASONING. 1 

173. Use of Logic in Literature. — Without attempting 
to enter into the details of formal logic, it will be useful to 
have some knowledge of the errors in reasoning that most 
commonly meet us in the course of our reading. 

When two men draw opposite inferences from the same 
facts, a phenomenon not unfrequent in historical and 
dramatic literature, it is natural for the reader to ask, not 
only which is the correct and which the incorrect inference, 
but also why the former is correct and the latter incorrect. 
The drama represents characters under the influence of 
exceptionally powerful circumstances or uncontrollable pas- 
sions. Lear on the verge of madness, and Othello in his 
fit of jealousy, are not unlikely to draw illogical inferences. 
Edmund and Iago, who make it their business to pervert the 
truth, are professionally bound to lead their victims into 
false inferences. Hence, even when reading " Lear " or 
" Othello," we shall find it useful to be able to detect errone- 
ous reasoning. Sometimes the error is easily detected. When 
Eichard II. addresses thus the two combatants, Bolingbroke 
and Mowbray, who accuse one another of high treason : 

1 The greater part of this chapter is based on Mr. Mill's remarks on "The 
Fallacies." 



256 EEEORS IN REASONING. 

We thank you both, yet one but flatters us, 
As well appeareth by the cause you come, 

Richard II. 

he takes for granted that " when two men accuse one 
another of the same crime, one is guilty." 

Again, when Buckingham urges that the young Duke of 
York, the child of Edward IV., ought not to be allowed the 
right of sanctuary at Westminster, because 

The benefit thereof is always granted 
To those whose dealings have deserved the place, 
And those who have the wit to claim the place : 
This prince hath neither claimed it nor deserved it, 
And therefore in mine opinion cannot have it ; 

Bichard III. 

he argues that, " since the guilty are the persons who need 
sanctuary, therefore the innocent (when in fear for their 
lives, because they are being treated as though they were 
guilty,) ought not to be allowed sanctuary." And his next 
argument, 

Oft have I heard of sanctuary men : 
But sanctuary children ne'er till now, 

lb. 

is based upon the premise, " Whatever I have never heard 
of, cannot possibly be right." 

Simple as is the detection of these fallacies, they are often 
very misleading. The argument last quoted, " Whatever is 
new to me must be bad," has often been repeated with 
effect, and in the particular instance it is successful. The 
Cardinal replies to Buckingham : 

My lord, you shall o'errule my mind for once. 



ERRORS IN REASONING. 257 

An altogether different kind of reasoning presents itself 
when Timon of Athens is led to infer from the conduct of 
his creditors that all men are bad : 

All is oblique : 
There's nothing level in our cursed natures 
But direct villany. 

Afterwards, when convinced of the honesty of his steward, 
he refuses to alter his conclusion about mankind, but treats 
it as a unique exception : 

I do proclaim 
One honest man —mistake me not — but one. 

Here evidently the error, if there is an error, is of a 
different kind from the errors in the previous examples ; and 
the question suggests itself, How many instances justify one 
in laying down a rule, and how many exceptions are re- 
quired to destroy a rule ? 

The sources of error are technically called Fallacies. They 
naturally correspond to the different sources of knowledge, 
which will therefore be considered first. 



SOURCES OP KNOWLEDGE. 

174. I. Personal Observation. — How do we know the 
truth of any statement — as, for instance, that a certain horse 
has four legs ? Obviously the most direct means of knowing 
this is to see or touch the horse. Hence we arrive at the 
first source of knowledge, viz., Personal Observation. 

Evidence. — On the supposition that every one spoke the 

17 



258 ERRORS IN REASONING. 

truth, evidence would be another kind of personal observation. 
But in practice the truth of evidence depends both on Personal 
Observation and on the two following Sources of Knowledge as 
well. If a man tells us, "I have seen a horse with five legs," 
we have to inquire, 1st, Is it possible that he may be mistaken ? 
(Personal Observation) ; 2nd, Does he generally speak the 
truth ] (Induction) ; 3rd, Are there any special circumstances 
that might lead us to suppose he is speaking truly or falsely 1 
(Deduction). 

175. II. Induction. — We cannot from our own per- 
sonal observation know that all horses have four legs. All 
that we know is that all the horses we have ever seen or 
heard of, have had four legs. But this knowledge of indi- 
vidual horses gives us a kind of certainty about the class. 
Each new instance of a four-legged horse that is introduced 
tends to convince us (if we are not already convinced) that 
all horses have four legs. This process, by which w r e are 
led to statements about a class from the introduction (called 
by Cicero induction) of individual instances, is called Induc- 
tion. 

176. III. Deduction. — But how do we know that a 
particular horse, unseen by us, Bucephalus for instance, had 
four legs ? We may reason as follows. ' We have discovered 
by Induction that " all horses are quadrupeds ; " Bucephalus 
was a horse; therefore Bucephalus was a quadruped.' Or 
thus: i If Bucephalus had not had four legs, such a monstro- 
sity would have been specially mentioned by historians ; but 
it has not been mentioned ; therefore it did not exist, and 
Bucephalus had the ordinary number of legs.' This process, 
by which from two statements we deduct' a third, is called 
Deduction. 



EEEORS IN REASONING. 259 

SOURCES OF ERROR. 

177. I. Prejudice. — The first source of error is Preju- 
dice, which at the outset substitutes desire for reason. 

178. II. Mai-Observation. — Non-Observation. — 
We may observe carelessly or omit observing. 

179. III. False Generalization, or Induction. — 

While we are proceeding from the observation of individuals 
to a statement about a class or genus, we are liable to error. 
The most obvious error is to make the general statement, or 
generalize, as it is called, from insufficient observation. Thus 
a child might infer that all men are kind from the single 
instance of his father, or, from more numerous but still in- 
sufficient instances, that all men are white. 

180. IV. Confusion. — Sometimes, when we are deduc- 
ing a statement from two other statements we may (1) con- 
fuse the meaning of the words, or (2) we may not understand 
what statement is intended to be deduced. Thus (1) 

An effective speaker persuades his audience ; 

He always speaks effectively ; 

Therefore he always persuades his audience. 
Here is a confusion between " effective" in the second 
statement, used rightly in the sense of " calculated to be 
effectual," and effective in the first statement, wrongly used 
for " effectual." Another very common error is to use a 
verb, in one of the premises, with an implied qualification of 
" generally," and then, in the conclusion, to use the verb 
without that qualification, or even to insert " always." 
Thus: 

A skilful speaker [generally) persuades his audience ; 

He is a skilful speaker ; 

Therefore he always persuades his audience. 



260 ERRORS IN REASON IXC 

Such errors are called "errors of confusion." Examples 
of (2) are not uncommon : a juror may think that a man 
is proved to be a thief because he is proved to be a vagrant ; 
or a barrister may prove that a man is a very amusing rogue, 
when the real thing to be proved is that the man is not a 
rogue at all ; and he may confuse a jury into fancying that 
he has proved the latter, when he has only proved the former. 

181. V. False Ratiocination, or Deduction. — Even 
though the two statements from which we deduce a con- 
clusion are correct and clearly understood, yet in the process 
of deduction we are liable to mistakes which will be described 
hereafter. One example will suffice for the present : 

All Englishmen like roast beef ; 

I like roast beef ; 

Therefore I am an Englishman. 



HOW TO AVOID ERROR. 
182. Personal Observation and Prejudice. — There 
is nothing which seems to us so certain as that which we 
have ourselves seen, heard, or otherwise perceived by our 
senses. And we may say with truth, strictly speaking, that 
our senses never deceive us. J But it is very difficult to dis- 
tinguish the evidence of our senses from the inferences which 
we draw from that evidence ; and these inferences are often 
mistaken. Even in such a statement as "I am happy," an 
inference is implied that the state of the speaker resembles a 
state of which the speaker has often heard, called " happi- 

1 It is not intruded here to touch on the subject of so-cnllcd optical 
delusions, and other results of an excited imagination. Even in such eases 
it may fairly be said that the person who Bees the sight is right in Baying 
that lie sees it, and only wrong in inferring that others must sec it, or that 
he can touch what he sees. 



ERRORS IN REASONING. 261 

ness." The inference may be wrong, and the speaker ought 
perhaps to have said, " I am merry," or "I am contented.'* 
Such mistakes as these are common with children and 
foreigners, and they can only be avoided by experience and 
observation. But they would generally be treated as mis- 
takes in the use of language, and would not come within the 
province of Logic. 

A different kind of mistake occurs when a child says, " The 
sun moves," and on being told that he is wrong, replies, " I 
see it move." The child does not see the sun move ; he only 
sees the sun changing its place relatively to trees, houses, and 
hills, all of which appear to remain fixed, and he thence infers 
that the sun moves. In the same way, a grown-up man 
might assert that on some misty day he had seen the sun 
rise some seconds before the time set down in the calendar, 
whereas he had merely seen an image of the sun raised to an 
unusual degree above the horizon by excessive refraction. 
These are mistaken inferences. In saying " I am happy," 
the meaning of the speaker was correct, but his words did 
not express his meaning. In saying " The sun moves," the 
speaker expresses his meaning, but his meaning is wrong. 

Beside the natural tendency to draw hasty inferences of 
any kind, we are also tempted to force our inferences from 
observation to correspond with our prejudices or misconcep- 
tions. Thus, a timid child who is predisposed to see fearful 
sights by night, mistakes a bush or post for a ghost or a 
robber; a person who has been told of " the man-in-the- 
moon," finds it easy to trace in the moon the features of a 
man. 1 Such prejudices have often seriously retarded the 

1 Or in the night, imagining some fear, 
How easy is a bush supposed a bear ! 

Midsummer Night's Dream. 



262 ERRORS IN REASONING. 

progress of science by preventing careful observation. Thus, 
it was long thought that, the circle being a perfectly sym- 
metrical figure, the heavenly bodies must move in circles ; 
the earth being superior in dignity to the sun, could not 
move round the sun ; a weight ten times as heavy as another 
must fall ten times as fast ; the magnet must exercise an 
irresistible force, etc. It is said that even now, the negroes 
affirm that the colour of the coral which they wear as an 
amulet is affected by the health of the wearer. 

Authority frequently originates and supports prejudice. 
Thus for many years it was affirmed on the authority of 
Galen that there was a communication between the two 
sides of the heart. Men dissected and examined, and 
remarked that the communication was hard to see, but they 
were prevented by prejudice from seeing that there was no 
communication at all. 

Another fertile source of prejudice is a false belief that 
whatever causes phenomena must resemble the phenomena, and 
vice versa. Hence it was thought that the planet Mars, 
being red, like blood, caused bloodshed ; that the elixir 
vitse, being precious, must be some mixture containing 
potable gold, the most precious of all metals ; that the lungs 
of the fox, a long-winded animal, were a specific against 
asthma, etc. 1 It follows that, if we desire to attain to the 
truth, we must, before and whilst observing, keep our minds 
clear from prejudice. 

183. Induction by Enumeration. — The Induction 
which proceeds from the mere enumeration of instances to 
a general statement about a class, as, for example, from " all 

1 The fat of an adder was once thought to be an antidote against the effects 

of its bite. Compare the proverb about " a hair of the (\o<z that hit you. " 



ERRORS IN REASONING. 263 

the horses that I have seen or heard of have had four legs," 
to " all horses have four legs," is evidently an insecure 
method of proof. It is based upon the principle of the 
uniformity of nature, " what has been is and will be." We 
may think it absurd to suppose that a horse could have six 
legs. But so it might have seemed absurd some centuries 
ago 'to a negro in the heart of Africa to doubt that " all 
men are black," or to a North American Indian to doubt 
that " all men are red," or to a Malay to doubt that " all 
men are yellow." 

184. Induction is always incomplete. — When a 
negro who had been in the habit of maintaining that " all 
men are black " met a white or red man, he would have two 
courses open to him. He could either say that the white 
was not a man, or he could give up his old definition of 
man, and make a new one. Thus all statements that result 
from merely enumerative induction are temporary and 
liable to correction. They may therefore be called pro- 
visional. Sometimes the instances enumerated may be 
ludicrously insufficient, as if a child of a soldier in the Scots 
Greys should infer from induction that all horses were grey ; 
but in no case is an induction complete unless it includes the 
whole of the class, in which case it ceases to be an Induction, 
and becomes Personal Observation. 

Thus, if a traveller were to write "the average height of 
Englishmen is a good deal above five feet/' as the result of his 
observation, this would be incomplete, and an induction ; but if 
the height of each Englishman were registered, and the traveller 
were quoting from the registering table, this would be complete, 
but not induction at all. It would be the result of the personal 
observation of those who supervised the accuracy of the registra- 
tion. 



264 ERRORS IN REASONING. 

185. Induction with Experiment. — If, however, we 
could make a horse artificially, and show that, in whatsoever 
way manufactured, a horse would have four legs, that would 
be an additional confirmation of the statement, " all horses 
have four legs." This process is not possible with respect 
to horses, but it is possible with respect to many natural 
phenomena, and it is called Experiment. Thus, take the 
thunder which follows lightning. As we almost always see 
lightning before we hear thunder, we might infer that the 
lightning caused the thunder, but we could not be certain. 
But by means of the electric machine we can manufacture 
mimic lightning in a variety of circumstances, and observe 
the mimic thunder which follows, and thus we obtain proof, 
which we can repeat as often as we like, that the lightning 
causes the thunder. 

186. Induction without Experiment. — Without Ex- 
periment, there is danger of being misled in Induction. 
Suppose I have taken a Turkish bath, and next day I catch 
a violent cold. I perhaps infer that the cold was caused 
by the Turkish bath. But I may be wrong ; for I may 
have been out of doors in the evening afterwards, or I may 
have sat in a draught at home, or I may have contracted 
the cold beforehand. Therefore, before I can infer that the 
Turkish bath caused the cold, I must not merely try a 
Turkish bath several times, but I must also vary the circum- 
stances in connection with it. If I find that, whether I keep 
indoors or go out, whether I wear light clothing or heavy, 
in these and other varied circumstances a Turkish bath is 
always followed by a cold — then, and not till then, shall I be 
justified in saying that a Turkish bath gives me a cold. 
The error of saying that whatever follows an occurrence is 



ERRORS IN REASONING. 265 

caused by that occurrence, is soraetirnes called " Post hoc, 
ergo propter hoc," Le. f " After this, and therefore on account 
of this:' 

Closely connected with this mistake is that of supposing 
that when we have found one cause we have found all the 
causes of an event. Thus, if we are ill and take medicine, 
and then get well, it by no means follows that the medicine 
was entirely, or in great part, or even in any degree, the 
cause of our getting well. The numerous natural forces at 
work within our bodies claim consideration, and they may 
have been entirely, and always are to a great extent, the 
causes of recovery from illness. 

187. Partial Induction. — Carelessness and partiality 
induce us to select some instances while we reject others. 
Bacon tells us that human nature is more impressed by 
positives than by negatives. If Fortune occasionally favours a 
fool, we are more impressed by a single instance of such 
favouritism than by many instances where fools have not 
been favoured, and we hastily assert, " Fortune favours 
fools." If a new medicine works a few cures, we are more 
struck by the few cures than by the many failures. Again, 
so strong and so imperceptible is the bias of partiality, that 
historians of honesty, Protestant and Romanist, Republican 
and Royalist, sometimes record the same occurrences, 
inserting some details and omitting others, and thereby pro- 
ducing results so different as to make it hard to recognize 
any similarity between them. 

188. Analogy meaning Likeness. — Analog}- meant 
originally an Equality of Ratios, or Proportion. It is some- 
times, however, loosely used to represent not so much pro- 
portion, as the similarity and regularity of natural phenomena. 



266 ERRORS IN REASONING. 

Thus we are said to infer by Analogy that l " because there 
was frost last January, there will probably be frost next 
January," or, from the fact that our planet is inhabited, to 
infer that all planets are inhabited. This is simply the argu- 
ment from Enumerative Induction, and the basis of it is 
" what has been will be." 

The regular recurrence of natural phenomena impresses 
this reasoning most forcibly upon us, and there are few things 
past or present of which we feel more sure than of the sun's 
rising to-morrow, although to many of us the only ground of 
our confidence is that "it always has been so." But the 
force of such Analogy, if it is to be so called, varies (beside 
other considerations) with the number of instances observed, 
for while we feel confident of the sun's rising, we feel by no 
means confident in inferring from the single instance of our 
planet, that other planets are inhabited* In this sense of 
the word, the argument from Analogy is the same thing as 
the argument from Induction. 

189. Analogy meaning Similarity of Relations*.— 

More frequently Analogy is used in its strict sense of Propor- 
tion to signify Similarity of Relations. Thus " as a child is 
undeveloped in strength and language, so an infant state is 
undeveloped in political and military power, and in literature " 
is an Analogy. This and other similar Analogies between 
the individual and the state are deducible from past, and may 
or may not be contradicted by future, history. 

190. Argument from Analogy basing itself on recog- 
nized Analogies mounts to others that are not recognized, 
thus : "As a child attains to youth and manhood, and in the 
end dies, so a state, after passing through a period of vigour 

1 Bishop Butler's " Analogy," Introduction. 



EREORS IN REASONING. 267 

and prosperity must in the end decay." This is no argument 
at all, unless it can be shown that the same natural causes 
of decay which exist in a child exist also in a state. Though 
a state be like an individual in one or two points, the like- 
ness need not extend to three or four, any more than salt 
need be sweet because it happens to resemble sugar in being 
white. 

The Argument from Analogy, therefore, so far as it is an 
argument at all, comes under the head of Induction. Other- 
wise it is not an argument, but a metaphorical illustration of 
an argument. Thus, " a metropolis is valuable, for it is to 
the country what the heart is to the human system, receiving 
and returning the elements of vitality," is an implied Analogy 
and true. But " the metropolis is like the heart of the 
country, and therefore must not increase while the country 
does not increase," and "when the heart of the country 
ceases to beat, the country must cease to exist," are rhetori- 
cal falsehoods founded on the Metaphor " The metropolis is 
(not ' is like') the heart of the country." 

191. Deduction, Technical Terms of. — In order to 
deduce a conclusion from two preceding statements 1 (called 
Pre-mises), the Premises must have some connection with 
one another. Nothing can be deduced from" all horses are 
quadrupeds," " all monkeys are bipeds." The two Premises 
must have something in common. This is called the Middle 
term. The Subject and Logical Predicate 1 of the conclusion 

1 A statement is technically called in logic a proposition. No verb 
except the verb to be is allowed in a proposition. Thus we must not say- 
All men desire happiness, 
but All men are beings desiring happiness. 

Here, as in Grammar, " all men" is the subject, but there is a difference 
as to the meaning of "predicate" in Grammar and Logic. 

In Grammar it is usual to give the name of predicate to whatever is said 



268 ERRORS IN REASONING. 

are called respectively the Minor ard Major terms. The 

statements containing the Minor and Major terms are called 
respectively the Minor and Major Premises. Thus : 





MIDDLE TEEM. 




MAJOR TLRM. 


Major Premise 


. All quadrupeds 


are 


animals. 




MINOR TERM. 




MIDDLE TI.KM. 


Minor Premise 


. All horses 


are 


quadrupeds. 




MINOR TERM. 




MAJOR TERM. 


Conclusion 


. All horses 


are 


animals. 


Two Premises 


and their conclusion 


are 


together called 


a Syllogism. 









192. A Syllogism implies Inclusion. — A Syllogism 
(with certain exceptions which will be considered below) 
states that the Minor term is included in the Middle, and the 
Middle in the Major, and infers that the Minor is included in 
the Major, just as one might say that a spoon was in a cup, 
and the cup in a basin, and thence infer that the spoon was 
in the basin. This is of course true if the spoon is entirely in 
the cup, and the cup entirely in the basin. And in the same 
way, as long as the Minor is entirely included in the Middle, 
and the Middle in the Major, it will follow that the Minor 
will be entirely included in the Major. If the spoon be only 
partially in the cup, then, though the cup be entirely in the 
basin, we can only argue that that pari of the spoon which is in 
the cup is in the basin. Similarly, if the Minor be only partly 

about the subject, e.g., " are beings desiring happiness." In Logic, on the 
other hand, the verb to be is separated from the grammatical predicate, 

and is called the link or copula. After the copula has been deducted, the 
remainder of the grammatical predicate, e.g., " beings desiring happiness," 
may be called the logical predicate. 



ERRORS IN REASONING. 269 

included in the Middle, we can only argue about that part 
of the Minor which may happen to be in the Middle ; thus 
from, — 

MIDDLE. MAJOR. 

Major Premise . All prosperous men are respected 

MINOR. MIDDLE. 

Minor Premise . Some good men are prosperous 

it only follows that that section of good men which is pros- 
perous is respected. 

If the spoon be entirely in the cup, but the cup only 
partially in the basin, we can infer nothing about the spoon. 
In the same way, if the Middle be only partially in the Major, 
we can infer nothing. Thus from 





MIDDLE. 




MAJOR. 


Major Premise 


. Some honest men 


are 


unfortunate 




MINOR. 




MIDDLE. 


Minor Premise 


. All good men 


are 


honest 



we can infer nothing. We only know that all good men 
constitute a section of honest men, and that a section of 
honest men is unfortunate ; but whether the two sections are 
wholly or partly identical, there is no means of deciding. 

If care be taken that the Minor be included in the Middle, 
and the Middle in the Major, the conclusion will be sound, 
and mistakes in Deduction, of which a large variety might 
be enumerated, will not occur. 

193. Illustration of the inclusion of the Syllogism. 

— The following diagrams carry out in detail the illustration 
just now given of the spoon, cup, and basin. The Minor term, 



270 



ERRORS IN SEASONING. 



or spoon, is represented by s n, the Middle term, or cup, by 
CUP, and the Major term, or basin, by B A S N. The con- 
clusion is represented by the position of s n with respect to 
BASN. 

l. 

p 




A V s 

Minor wholly in Middle ; Middle wholly in Mai or. 

Result, 

Minor s n entirely in BASN, Major. 

All men are endowed with reason; 

All fools are men ; 

Therefore all fools are endowed with reason. 




Minor partly in Middle ; Middle partly in Major. 
Result wholly uncertain. 

(sn maybe partly ) 

1 s' n' wholly \ in B A S N, Major. 

\s" n" not at all) 



Minor 






Some lucky persons are clever ; 
Some dishonest persons are lucky ; 
Nothing ibllows. 



ERRORS IN REASONING. 
3. 



271 




Minor wholly in Middle ; Middle partly in Major. 
Result wholly uncertain. 



Minor 



s n 

s' n' 

s" n" 



wholly 
partly 
not at all 



inBASN, Major. 



Some honest men are foolish ; 
All good men are honest ; 
Nothing follows. 




Minor partly in Middle ; Middle wholly in Major. 
Result, 

Minor \ * n ' must , be PP*}y 1 in B A S N, Major. 

\s n may be wholly j ' J 

All persecution is impolitic ; 
Some prosecution is persecution ; 
Therefore some prosecution is impolitic. 

$S* It is also possible, as far as this syllogism goes, that all prosecutions 
may be impolitic. 



272 



ERRORS IN REASONING. 
5. 




A n ~~5 ** n'u 

Minor not in Middle ; Middle not in Major. 
Result wholly uncertain. 



(sn maybe wholly ^ 
Minor Vn' nartlv V i 



(s"n" 



partly 
not at all 

Honest men are not unjust; 

Thieves are not honest men ; 
Nothing- follows. 



in B A S N, Major. 




Minor •< $' 

u 



U -s- 3 *» It" 

Minor not in Middle ; Middle wholly in Major. 
Result wholly uncertain. 
8 n may be wholly \ 

partly ^ J- in B A S N, Major. 



I not at all 

Thieves are dishonest men ; 
Just men are not thieves ; 
Nothing follows. 






6*. 

Minor not in Middle; Middle partly in Major. 
Result wholly uncertain. 

Can be Been from (I. 
Some thieves are cruel ; 
Jnst men are not thieves ; 
Nothing- follows. 



ERRORS IN REASONING. 



273 




Minor wholly in Middle ; Middle not in Major. 

Result. 

Minor s n not in Major, BASN. 

Those wftio learn something are not utterly ignorant ; 

All industrious students learn something ; 

Therefore (all industrious students) are not utterly ignorant ; 

i.e. (in better English), No industrious student is utterly ignorant. 



8. 




Minor partly in Middle ; Middle not in Major. 

Result. 

Minor {- -ybe P^ } ^ B AgN , Majo , 

Minor cannot be wholly in Major, BASN. 

Men who are poor are not said to be successful in life ; 

Some honest men are poor ; 

Therefore some honest men are not said to be successful in life. 

(It is possible, as far as this syllogism is concerned, that some honest men 
may be, or that none may be, said to be successful ; but all cannot be.) 

18 



274 ERRORS IN REASONING. 

194. Ambiguous Case. — Where the subject in a Propo- 
sition is put in the form " not all," e.g.. 

Not all the good are rich, 
there is an uncertainty. Such a Proposition will be satisfied 
if " no good men," and also if "only some good men, are 
rich," i. e.y if the subject be not at all included, or only 
partially included, in the Logical Predicate. We must take 
the case which proves least. For example : 

Rich men are not despised, 

Not all the good are rich. 
Here, if we could interpret our Minor as meaning " some 
only of the good are rich," we should have (8), and might 
infer with certainty "the good are not all despised." But 
the Minor is satisfied if u none of the good are rich," and 
in that case we have (5), and nothing is proved. 

Conversely, but upon the same principle, (7) which is a 
case of non-inclusion, must not be used, because it proves 
something, and (3) which is a case of partial inclusion, must 
be used because it proves nothing, in the following example : 

Not all the good are sinless. 

Those who are happy are good. 
In the last example, we were right in interpreting " Not all 
the good are rich" to mean "None of the good are rich." 
Nowhere, if in the same way we could interpret "Not all 
the good are sinless" to mean "None of the good are 
sinless," we should infer, from (7) : 

Those who are happy are not included in the class of 
those who are sinless. 
But the Major is satisfied if " only some of the good are sin- 
less:" and in that case we have (3), which proves nothing. 

195. Propositions of Identity. — It is not always true 



ERRORS IN REASONING. 275 

that a proposition expresses that the subject is included in 
the logical predicate. In " All squares are equilateral rect- 
angular figures," there is no inclusion, but identity. So 
" Paris is the capital of France," is an identity. In this 
case one of the three terms of the syllogism may be said to 
be wholly included in another, but is also identical with it. 
All the conclusions which follow, as seen above, in the cases 
of total inclusion, follow here. Other conclusions also 
follow, as will be shortly seen ; but everything that is true, 
as the result of inclusion, is also true of identity, so that 
there is no difficulty in applying the diagrams representing 
total inclusion in the last paragraph, to propositions that 
express identity. 

196. Ambiguity of Predicate. — Take the following 
irregular quasi- syllogism : 

All equilateral triangles are equiangular triangles ; 
All isosceles triangles with an angle of 60° are equi- 
angular triangles ; 
Therefore all equilateral triangles are isosceles triangles 
with an angle of 60°. 
This is correct : why is the following incorrect ? 
All horses are animals ; 
All goats are animals ; l 
Therefore all horses are goats. 
The answer is, that there is an ambiguity in the Predicates 
of the propositions. In the former argument "all" might 
have been written before the Middle term " equiangular tri- 
angles, in the latter "all" could not have been written be- 
fore " animals." This ambiguity would have been avoided 
if we had written in the first argument " all equiangular 

1 This error is technically called " the error of the undistributed middle." 



276 ERROES IN REASONING. 

triangles," and in the second argument " some animals." In 
this way we should have defined how much of the predicate is 
occupied by the subject, whether all or only part. This pro- 
cess has been called "the quantification of the predicate." 

197- Conversion of Propositions. — Mistakes are 
sometimes made in converting a proposition, i.e., in changing 
the subject into the logical predicate, and the logical pre- 
dicate into the subject. Thus, from " all good men are 
truthful," it is sometimes inferred that " all truthful men are 
good," whereas, since we only know that " all good men 
are included in the class of truthful men," we can infer 
no more than that "among truthful men there are some 
who are also good," or, in other words, "some truthful 
men are good." A statement or proposition in which the 
logical predicate is predicated of the whole of the subject, as 
of " all good men," is called a Universal proposition ; where 
the logical predicate is predicated of a part of the subject, 
as of " some truthful men," the proposition is called 
Particular. We therefore see that the conversion of a 
Universal affirmative proposition 1 results in a Par- 
ticular. If, however, we have a Universal negative, as, 
"No good men are contemptible," it follows that "in the 
class of contemptible men there are none who are good," 
i.e., "no contemptible men are good ;" or generally, a Uni- 
versal negative may be converted. 

198. Denial of the Antecedent. — The antecedent is 
the logical name for a condition, e.g., "if he is guilty ; " the 

1 Unless it be a " Proposition of Identity " (see 195). Propositions of 
Identity are of course convertible, e.g., 

Paris is the capital of France. 

Right angles are angles of ninety degrees. 
They are really definitions. 



EKRORS^IN REASONING. 277 

consequent is the logical name for the consequence of the 
condition if fulfilled. 

If he is guilty, he will blush. 

You can infer nothing from denying an Ante- 
cedent. Thus, it is futile to argue : 

If he is guilty, he will blush ; 
But he is not guilty ; 
Therefore he will not blush ; 

for a man may blush if he is guilty, but he may also blush 
for other reasons, as, for example, at being accused of guilt. 
And generally, if I deny an antecedent, I only deny that 
the consequent will take place as the consequent of that 
antecedent, but it may take place as the consequent of 
other antecedents. 

Similarly, you can infer nothing from affirming a 
Consequent. For example, I am not justified in arguing : 

If he is guilty, he will blush ; 

But he blushes, 

Therefore he is guilty ; 
or, as was said above, blushing may be caused by other 
feelings beside the consciousness of guilt. 

On the other hand, if the Consequent be denied, the 
Antecedent is denied. 

199. The Error of the Suppressed Premise. — When 
the Premises are correctly and clearly stated, the conclusion 
is not often incorrectly deduced. Mistakes more frequently 
arise from taking for granted a Premise that is not stated, 
but suppressed. In such cases the Premise, or conclusion, 
or both, are generally stated informally and loosely, otherwise 
error would be impossible. Thus : 



278 ERRORS IN REASONING. 

Falkland was a good man ; 

Falkland was a man who sided with Charles I. against 

the Parliament ; 
Therefore it was a good action to side with Charles I. 
against the Parliament. 
This argument is based upon the suppressed Premise that 
" every action of a good man is good." All that can be 
inferred from the Premises is that " a good man sided with 
Charles I. against the Parliament." 

200. The Error of the Variable Middle.— Some- 
times, and especially when a syllogism is irregularly stated, 
the Middle term is used with different meanings in the Major 
and Minor Premise. Thus : 

The nature of a clock is to indicate the correct time ; 

To deviate from the correct time is the nature of a clock ; 

Therefore to deviate from the correct time is to indicate 
the correct time. 
Here the word " nature " in the first statement means 
the intention of the maker, but in the second the custom of 
the thing made. Such errors are exceedingly common with 
respect to other words in very common use, such as 
" church," " happiness," " liberty," " rights," "repre- 
sentative," "necessity," " afford/' " must," etc., and 
mistakes can only be avoided by carefully defining before- 
hand the sense in which we understand the terms. The 
neglect of this precaution gives rise to much misunder- 
standing and waste of time. 

It is evident that in passing from one syllogism to another 
we are even more liable to the error of varying our terms 
than in passing from one Premise to another. 

201. The Error of the Forgotten Condition. — Error 



ERRORS IN REASONING. 279 

sometimes arises when a Premise is stated subject to a cer- 
tain implied condition which, not being expressed, is after- 
wards forgotten. Thus : 

The doubling of the supply of a useful metal, iron, lead, 

etc., is a thing to be desired [; 
The doubling of the supply of gold is the doubling of 

the supply of a useful metal ; 
Therefore, the doubling of the supply of gold is a thing 
to be desired. 
Here " useful," as applied to gold in the Minor Premise, 
implies a utility that is dependent on rarity, and this condi- 
tion is forgotten in combining the Minor with the Major. 

Connected with this error is the forgetfulness of the rela- 
tive force of an epithet. A rat is an animal, and a chess- 
player is a man, but a " huge rat " is not a " huge animal," 
nor need " a clever chess-player" be "a clever man." 

202. Errors of Confusion.— (1.) Ignorance of the 
point in question. 1 — Error arises from confusing the point 
in question. This is very common in law courts, and is 
effectively employed in producing a prejudice. Thus, if a 
clerk has pleaded guilty to a charge of fraud, but excuses 
himself on the ground that he was misled by companions, 
exposed by his employer to overwhelming temptation, or in- 
duced by poverty to commit the crime, the counsel for the pro- 
secution might ignore the point in question, which is, whether 
the circumstances extenuate the crime, and might insist on 
what is not denied, that " after all the fellow is a rogue." 

203. Errors of Confusion.— (2.) Begging the ques- 
tion. (3.) Reasoning in a circle. — A second error of 
confusion arises from taking for granted in the course of the 

1 This error is often called " Ignoratio Elenchi." 



280 ERRORS IN REASONING. 

Premises the conclusion to be deduced ; thus : 

An autobiographer's evidence is trustworthy ; 

Robinson Crusoe says he is an autobiographer ; 

Therefore Robinson Crusoe's evidence is trustworthy. 
Here in the Minor Premise we assume the trustworthiness 
of Crusoe's evidence; i.e., the conclusion. 

When this error is extended to attempting to prove two 
propositions reciprocally from one another, thus, — " We 
know that the story of Robinson Crusoe is true, because it 
is an autobiography written by one who could not be mis- 
taken about the incidents of his own life, and we know that 
it was an autobiography because the book tells us it was " — 
this is called reasoning in a circle. 

204. Definitions. — A Definition is a statement stating 
the class to which a thing belongs, and the difference by 
which the thing is distinguished from other things of the 
same class. Every definition, therefore, should first mention 
the class or genus of the object, and then the difference by 
which it is limited off (de-jinio) from the rest of the class. 
Thus man is first an animal [genus), then a rational (differ- 
ence) animal. Should we hereafter find out other rational 
animals, with wings, suppose, and beaks, we should either 
have to call the newly-discovered animals men, or else to 
narrow our definition. All definitions that are the result of 
past, and may be changed by future, observation, may be 
coiled provisional. 

205. Definition and Description. — In defining, after 
mentioning the genus, care should be taken to select that 
point of difference which is least likely to cease to be a point 
of difference upon further observation. Thus to define 
" man " from the genus " animal," the difference " rational " 



EKROKS IN REASONING. 281 

is obviously more suitable than " biped and featherless," or 
" cooking," or " two-handed." For the old definition of " a 
featherless biped," included a plucked cock ; and a " cooking 
animal" would, if some naturalists are to be believed, include 
the butcher-bird, which is said to spit its prey upon a thorn 
before devouring it. 

206. Essentials and Accidents. — Those defining differ- 
ences which are regarded as peculiar to the object defined 
are called essentials, the others, accidents. An enumeration 
of the accidents of anything may serve to define the thing; 
but such a definition is called a description. Y/e can define 
an animal, and a man, and a knight, but we cannot define an 
individual, e. g. , Sir John Falstaff. For the definition would 
be " a knight (genus) who is (difference) Sir John Falstaff." 
We could however give a description of him as "a man 
several feet round the waist, weighing so many pounds, 
more fond of feasting than of fighting," etc. 

207. Mathematical certainty.— No definition that is 
subject to changes can be called final. As a rule, therefore, 
a definition is not final unless the object defined depends 
for its very existence on the definition, as, for instance, a 
circle, a triangle, a line. There is no such thing in the 
material world as " length without breadth," and therefore 
the definition of a line cannot be changed by the observation 
of new material lines. It is desirable to remember, when 
" mathematical certainty" is spoken of, that the " certainty" 
depends upon the unalterable nature of the definitions, and 
the definitions are unalterable because the objects defined 
have no existence except in definition. 

208. Probable Propositions. — In practice we are in 
the habit of acting, not on certainties, but on probabilities. 



282 ERRORS IN REASONING. 

Where the premises are not certain, but only probable, it 
follows, of course, that the conclusion also is only probable. 
But more than this follows. A conclusion that depends upon 
the truth of two probable propositions is less probable than a 
conclusion that depends on the truth of one of the two pro- 
positions. Take the following case : 

It is probable that I shall find my friend at home ; 

My friend's brother is sure to be with him ; 

Therefore it is probable that I shall find my friend and 
his brother at home. 
Here the probability of the conclusion is as great as the pro- 
bability of the first premise. But in the second premise 
substitute " will probably be " for "is sure to be." Evidently 
an additional improbability is introduced into the conclusion. 
In the former case, if you find your friend, you are sure 
to find his brother also ; in the latter, even though you find 
your friend, you may not find his brother. Every new pro- 
bable condition introduced, introduces a new improbability 
in the conclusion dependent on the conditions. 

It is usual to denote certainty by one. And we say that if A 
is spinning a penny, the chance that tail will turn up is half. 
But if A, B, C simultaneously spin a penny, the chance that 
A and B will find tail turn up is not a half, but a half multiplied 
by the chance of B's turning up tail ; i.e., half multiplied by a 
half, or a quarter ; and the chance that A, B, and C will all 
turn up tail is a half multiplied by a half, multiplied by a half, 
or an eighth. For a detailed consideration of the question of 
probabilities, it is desirable to study the subject mathematically; 
but it is useful to remember, whenever we are told that " A is 
probable, and B is probable ; therefore A and B are probable," 
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QUESTIONS. 



FIRST PART. 

CHAPTER I. 
Words Defined by Usage. 

1. Show how the Method of Induction is applied to the discovery of the 
meaning-s of words. Illustrate by the word oppression. (Par. l.)i 

2. What do you mean by elimination ? Show how the meaning and deri- 
vation of the word define are connected. (1,2.) 

3. Show, illustrating by a diagram, how a child might discover by induction 
the meaning of the word black, (2.) 

4. Show the connection between classification and definition. (3.) 

5. Show by an example the use of elimination before definition. (4.) 

6. What are synonyms ? Give instances. (7). 

7. Why are synonyms more common in English than in other lan- 
guages? (7.) 

8. Define, using the process of elimination, (a) proud as compared with 
presumptuous, insolent, haughty, vain ; (b) authority compared with 
strength, influence; (c), tribe compared with nation, people, race, popu- 
lace, population, family. (8.) 

9. What is an anonym ? Show how anonyms can often be readily found. 
Mention any anonyms connected with resentment, ambition. (10.) 

10. Show, by instances, that language is deficient in terms expressing 
average qualities. Why is this ? (10.) 

11. What is generalizing? What is an abstract term? Explain the 
origin of these names. (11.) 

12. Give general terms including moon, circle, sword, shilling. (11.) 

1 The number at the end of each question refers to the paragraph whore the 
question will be found answered. 



QUESTIONS. 285 

13. Give groups of words connected severally with time, motion, think, 
anger. (12.) 

For other questions, see pages 12, 13, 16. 

CHAPTER II. 

"Words Defined by Derivation. 

1. Show, with instances, how a word can sometimes be at once understood 
from knowing the meaning of its roots. (13.) 

2. Show, with instances, the danger of trusting entirely for the meaning 
of a word to a knowledge of its roots. (14.) 

3. What are hybrids? Mention hybrids that are recognized as good 
English. (15.) 

4. Show, by instances, that the Latin prefixes are often disguised in 
English words. (16.) 

5. What is the derivation and original meaning of Utopia ? What is its 
present meaning ? 

6. What is the force of the verbal prefixes be-, for-? (18.) 

7. What is the force of the noun affixes -ard, -eery, -ing, -ism ? (19.) 

8. What is the force of the adjective affixes -ly, -tive? (20.) 

9. Show, by the derivative from the Latin root fac-, that the method of 
derivation is insufficient to ascertain the meaning of a word. (22.) 

10. Why is a knowledge of the Greek roots peculiarly useful ? (24.) 

11. Mention the different classifications of the consonants ? (26.) 

12. What is Grimm's Law ? Give instances. (25, 27.) 

13. Give instances of contraction of words in derivation. (29.) 

14. Give instances of liquid changes in derivation. (31.) 

15. Show that it is natural for a word to change its meaning in passing 
from one language to another. (34.) 

16. Show that the Law of Contraction of Meaning is natural in a civilized 
nation. (35.) 

17. What words are especially liable to have their meaning extended ? (33.) 

18. Give instances of the Law of Deterioration. 

For other questions, see pages 23, 29, 35 — 41, 44, and the following pages. 



SECOND PART. 

CHAPTER I. 
1. What is the object of poetry as distinct from that of ordinary prose? (40.) 



286 QUESTIONS. 

2. What arc the three characteristics of poetic diction, as distinct from 
the diction of prose ? (40.) 

3. Show, by instances, that poetic diction is archaic. (41.) 

4. What is meant by sensuous when Milton says that poetry should be 
" simple, sensuous, and passionate"? Why does sensuous language eschew 
generic terms ? Give instances. (42.) 

5. Show that Poetic Diction uses epithets for the things denoted. (42# .) 

6. What is meant by Ornamental Epithets! Give instances. (42b.) 

7. What is meant by Essential Epithets ? Give instances. (4*2c.) 

8. Show that Poetry is averse to lengthy phrases. Give instances ot 
Poetic Compounds. (43a.) 

9. Give instances of short Poetic forms of words. (43&.) 

10. Give instances to show that Poetry prefers euphonious words. (43r.) 

11. Mention some exaggerations of the Poetic Characteristics, giving any 
instances that you remember. (44.) 

12. Mention some different styles of Poetry, and the characteristics of each. 
(45.) 

13. What is the style of Milton's " Paradise Lost" ? Give an instance anp 
an exception. (46.) 

14. What is grotesqueness ? What is bombast ? (47, 48.) 

15. What is bathos ? Give an instance. (49.) 

16. Criticize the style of Pope's " Odyssey," giving instances. (50.) 

17. What is the Graceful Style ? Give instances, and illustrate by the 
correction in the later edition of " The Miller's Daughter." (51.) 

18. What are the dangers of the Graceful Style? Illustrate by Thom- 
son's " Seasons." (52.) 

19. What is the general style of the Elizabethan dramatists ? Give in- 
stances. Quote some passages in which the characteristics of this style appear 
to be carried to excess. What justification is in some cases possible ? (54, 55.) 

20. Criticize the diction of Dryden. (54.) 

21. When is the Simple Style in place ? What is its danger ? (06, 57.) 

CHAPTER II. 

1. How does the diction of Prose differ from that of Poetry ? Why should 
it? (59.) 

2. Show that impassioned prose may approximate to the (a) metre, 
(b) brevity, of Poetry. In what point does the best Prose of this kind keep 
itself distinct from Poetry? (60.) 

3. Mention some writers who have not preserved the distinction referred 
to in the last question. (61.) 



QUESTIONS. 287 

4. How has the authorized version of the Bible influenced our choice 
of words ? (Page 94.) 

5. Criticize the style of Lamb. (61) 

6. What is the best broad rule for writing English Prose ? (62.) 

7. To what qualifications is this rule subject ? (63, 64, 65, 66.) 



CHAPTER III. 



? 



1. What technical metaphors are admissible, as a rule, in polite diction 
What technical metaphors are inadmissible, and treated as slang? (6&.) 

2. What is the fault of fine icriting ? Whence does it arise ? (69.) 

3. When are poetic quotations and periphrases admissible, and when not ? 
(70.) 

4. Whence does tautology arise ? What is the remedy for tautology ? (71. ) 

5. What different causes may give rise to obscurity ? (72.) 

6. Distinguish between a long enumerative sentence and a long com- 
plicated sentence. WTiat is a heterogeneous sentence ? Wherein consists 
the difficulty of underst anding the latter ? (72.) 

7. Show how Inversion, and the non-repetition of the Nominative, some- 
times produce obscurity. (Pages 114, 115.) 

8. Show how (a) the Personal Pronouns and (b) the Relative Pronouns 
sometimes give rise to ambiguity. (Pages 116, 117.) 

9. Show how (c) not, (d) any, (e) but, are sometimes ambiguously used. 
(Pages 118, 119.) 

10. Show how (/) Adverbs, (g) Participles, (h) Infinitives sometimes 
cause ambiguity. (Pages 119, 120.) 

11. Why must we bestow more pains on the arrangement of words in 
writing than in conversation ? (74.) 

12. Describe the Rhetorical Period. What are the two great requisites 
of Rhetoric, and show how they lead to the Rhetorical Period ? (75.) 

CHAPTER IV. 

1. What is a Simile? (77.) 

2. What is a Metaphor? Why is Metaphor better suited than Simile 
lor Prose ? (78.) 

3. Show, by instances, that implied Metaphor is the basis of a great part 
oi language. (80.) 

4. Give definite rules for expanding a Metaphor. What is the fourth term 
in the proportion ? Give instances. (81.) 

5. What is Personification ? Give instances. (82.) 



288 QUESTIONS. 

6. Distinguish between Personification and Personal Metaphor. (83.) 

7. Show that Personification can be analysed. (85.) 

8. Show the naturalness and convenience of Personal Metaphor. (86.) 

9. Show the difficulty of distinguishing between Personification and Meta- 
phor. (87.) 

10. Distinguish between Metaphor and Hyperbole. Give instances. (87.) 

11. Distinguish between Metaphor and Confusions of Similarity. (88.) 

12. Give rules for distinguishing between good and bad Metaphors. Illus- 
trate bv instances. (89.) 



THIRD PART. 

CHAPTER I. 



1. When is Rhythm appropriate ? When is Metre ? (91, 92.) 

2. Show that Shakspeare does not use Poetry and Prose at random. (93.) 

3. Explain the origin of Didactic Poetry. (94.) 

4. Show that there might be more than one basis for the distinction be- 
tween Prose and Poetry. What is the basis in English Poetry? (96.) 

5. What is a Foot ? State, with instances, the different kinds of feet. (97.) 

6. Distinguish between Accent and Emphasis. (99.) 

7. Show that English Accent favours Disyllabic Metre ? (100.) 

8. State clearly, with instances, the rules respecting the use of the unem- 
phatic Metrical Accent. Show that an unemphatic Metrical Accent is often 
followed by an emphatic non-accented syllable. Why is this? (101.) 

9. What is the purpose served by unemphatic Metrical Accents ? (105.) 

10. Show, by instances, that the Metrical Accent is not always equally 
emphatic. (106.) 

11. Within what limits does the number of unaccented syllables in each 
foot vary. Mention some recognized variations. (107.) 

12. Show, by examples, that the prevalent foot must sometimes determine 
whether Metre is disyllabic or trisyllabic ? (108.) 

13. What is Rhyme ? Mention some faults in Rbvmin"-. (109, 110.) 

14. What is the disadvantage of Double Rhyme ? When is it mostly used ? 
(111.) 

15. What is the effect of Quantity on English Metre ? (112.) 

10. What are " Slurred Syllables " ? Show that the Elizabethan pronun- 
ciation differed from ours. (114.) 



QUESTIONS. 289 

17. What is the effect of the Pause in Metre ? Give some instances. (115 
—121.) 

18. What is Alliteration ? Give instances of artistic and also of excessive 
Alliteration; and show the influence exerted by early English Poetry in 
this respect. (122—128.) 

19. Show that in the Initial Foot more license is allowed than in the other 
feet. What is the cause of this? (129.) 

CHAPTER II. 

1. Show that some of Shakspeare's so-called Alexandrines are in reality 
couplets of three accents. (132.) 

2. Show the effect of Coesura in the Iambic of four accents. (133.) 

3. How does Milton use the Trochaic of four accents ? (134.) 

4. Give instances of Elision. (137.) 

5. In what cases can you have a Trochee in the five-accent Iambic line. 
(138.) 

6. How does Blank Verse differ from Rhyming Verse ? (139.) 

7. How does Rhyming Narrative differ from the Rhyming Couplet. (140.) 

8. Describe (1) Shakspeare's Sonnet, (2) Milton's Sonnet. (141.) 

CHAPTER III. 

1. What is the general effect of the Trisyllabic Metre ? (144.) 

2. Show the difficulty of determining in all cases the Scansion of Tri- 
syllabic Metre. (145.) 

3. What disadvantages attend the use of Trisyllabic Metre ? (100.) 



FOURTH PART. 



1. How do scientific and non-scientific composition differ ? (151.) 

2. Distinguish between Oratory and Didactic Composition. (154, 155.) 

3. In what class of composition may Poetry generally be placed ? (152.) 

4. What kind of argument is unsuited for oratory ? (154.) 

5. Give an instance from Shakspeare of the difference between effective 
and ineffective oratory. (154d.) 

6. Give instances of the successful and oi the unsuccessful use of the 
supernatural. (156, 157.) 

7. What is meant by the unity of feeling in an imaginative work ? Give 
instances of the violation of it. (159.) 

19 



290 QUESTIONS. 

8. Give examples of purely argumentative poems. How should these be 
classified? (161.) 

9. In what styles of composition does argument principally occur, and how 
should the style of composition modify the handling of it ? (102.) 

10. Give instances of faulty arrangement in historical narration. (105.) 

11. How does a novel differ from a romance ? Give instances of each. (100.) 

12. How may a play be neither a tragedy, nor a comedy? Give an 
instance of such a play. (100.) 

13. What is the original meaning of the word idyll, and what is its 
meaning in usage ? (171.) 

14. What principle is followed in constructing the plot of an epic poem ? 
Illustrate from the iEneid. (172.) 



QUESTIONS ON APPENDIX. 

1. " All the world's a stage, 

And all the men and women merely players." 

As You Like It, ii. 7. 140. 
By what logical process does Jaques arrive at this conclusion? Give 
other instances of this process, e.g., the conclusion arrived at by Timon of 
Athens. (173,175.) 

2. "If thou never wast at court, thou never sawest good manners ; if 
thou never sawest good manners, then thy manners must be wicked ; and 
wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Truly, shepherd, thou art in a 
parlous state." As You Like It, iii. 1. 40. 

Under what head does this error come ? Give another instance pre- 
senting greater difficulty. (180.) 

3. " The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth. 

* ♦ * * 

These signs forerun the death or fall of kings." 

Richard II. ii. 4. 10. 
Explain this reasoning, and give other instances. (182.) 

4. " When beggars die, there are no comets seen. 

The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes." 

Julius Ccesar, ii. 2, 30. 
Many beggars die when one great man dies ; whence then the belief 



QUESTIONS. 291 

that comets are not seen when beggars die, but are seen when a great man 
dies ? Refer to a statement of Lord Bacon. (187.) 

5. What are "the five Fallacies'-" ? (177—181.) 

6. What is Induction ? What was the original meaning of the word ? 
Explain exactly the meaning of generalise. (175.) 

7. Give instances of hasty generalization. (183, 184.) 

8. What is meant by induction through enumeration ? (183.) 

9. Why is experiment necessary to induction ? Show how experiment 
can prevent the error post hoc, ergo propter hoc. (186.) 

10. It is said that induction is always, incomplete. But if we can 
observe the whole of a class, can we not attain a complete induction ? 
(184.) 

11. Give instances of the misleading effects of prejudice. (182.) 

12. What are the two senses in which the word Analogy has been used ? 
Which of them is correct ? (188, 189.) 

13. In what sense is -the Argument from Analogy an argument, and in 
what sense is it not ? Give instances. (190.) 

14. What is meant by Proposition, Logical Predicate, Middle Term, 
Minor Premise, Antecedent, Syllogism, Copula, and Deduction! (191.) 

15. When can a Logical Proposition not be treated as implying that the 
subject is included in the Logical Predicate ? (196.) 

16. IS T ot all rich men are happy. 
Some good men are rich. 

What can be deduced from these premises ? Illustrate by a diagram. (195.) 

17. Express in diagrams the cases where a conclusion can be deduced 
from premises. (194.) 

18. What is meant by " the quantification of the predicate " ? (197.) 
i9. What is meant by (1) a universal, (2) a particular proposition? (198.) 

20. What is meant by a convertible proposition ? When can a universal 
proposition be converted ? What is the result of converting a universal 
affirmative proposition (not being a proposition of identity) ? (198.) 

21. If this evidence were given by an eye-witness, we should be bound 

to believe it ; 
But it is not given by an eye-witness ; 
Therefore we are not bound to believe it. 
Discuss this reasoning. (199.) 

22. Trial by jury is an essential part of the British constitution; 
Therefore trial by jury must be the best possible method of trial. 

Discuss this reasoning, and supply what is omitted. (200. ) 

23. When the antecedent or the consequent of a proposition is denied, 
what follows ? Illustrate your answer by an example. (199.) 



292 QUESTIONS. 

24. Anything is excused by necessity. 

I am under a necessity to preserve my life, 

Therefore anything that I do to preserve my life must be excused. 
Discuss this. (201.) 

25. Men are rational animals ; 
Thomas acts irrationally ; 
Therefore Thomas is not a man. 

Discuss this. (200, 180.) 

26. Suppose that hereafter there were to be discovered an animal 
resembling man externally, and also endowed with reason, but destitute oi 
the moral sense, what two courses would be open with respect to the 
definition, " Man is a rational animal " ? (204. ) 

27. What is meant by " Ignoratio Elenchi " ? Give an instance. (202.) 

28. A palace is a building ; 
This is a small palace ; 
Therefore this is a small building. 

Discuss this. (201.) 

29. What is meant by begging the question ? Give an instance. (203.) 

30. What is meant by reasoning in a circle ? Give an instance. (203.) 

31. Distinguish between Definition and Description. (205.) 

32. On what does " mathematical certainty " depend ? (207.) 

33. It is probable that he will come here to-day; 
It is probable that when he comes he will dine ; 
Therefore it is probable that he will dine here to-day. 

Comment on the conclusion, and show that there is a danger of being 
misled by the use of the word probable. (208.) 



Watson and HazelL Printers, London and Aylesbury. 



RECENTLY PUBLISHED. 

A SHAKESPEARIAN GRAMMAR.— An attempt 

to illustrate some of the differences between 

Elizabethan and Modern English. By the Rev. 

E. A. Abbott, M.A., Head Master of the City of 

London School. For the use of Schools. New 

and Enlarged Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo, 6s. 

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The principal object being to make a useful booh of reference for 
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LIVY. — Books I. — X. With Notes and Dissertations 
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